Three years after they were an international media sensation -- hey, who doesn't like talking about and looking at Russian lesbian schoolgirls? --
t.A.t.U. returned in 2005 with their second album, Dangerous and Moving. As
Tommy Duncan sang, time does indeed change everything, and
t.A.t.U. had a turbulent three years, separating from the Svengali manager and, most shocking of all, revealing that they weren't lesbians at all! In fact,
Julia Volkova actually had a child, which kind of punctured the whole schoolgirl lesbian fantasy that had been pushed by the dearly departed manager in the first place. So, free to be themselves,
t.A.t.U. decided to grow up for their second album -- and nothing says maturity like ditching the short plaid skirts and bringing in
Sting to play bass for a track, while hiring
Richard Carpenter for a string arrangement for another. The presence of these two middlebrow titans may suggest that Dangerous and Moving sounds different than their debut,
200 km/h in the Wrong Lane, and while that's true to a certain extent, it's also misleading. Yes, there are a couple more ballads here, the Eurotrash quotient isn't quite so trashy (yet it's every bit as Euro), and, best of all, the girls' voices aren't run through the computer compressor that makes them sound as high and shrill as a drill. But all these little changes don't really alter the duo's music much at all. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine