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UK
Release Date: |
20
March 2006 |
Track
Listing: |
1. You Never Know
2. Sensitivity
3. Lola's Theme
4. Incredible
5. Really Feel
6. Over Me
7. If In Doubt Go Out
8. Back To Basics
9. Route One
10. Little Green Men
11. Beautiful Heartache
12. Instead Of Falling
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Shapeshifters
- Sound Advice (Positiva)
Published:
musicOMH,
March 2006
Original
article:
http://www.musicomh.com/albums/shapeshifters_0306.htm
Dance
music needs somebody to come along and smash it to pieces.
Someone who refuses to use the keyboard pre-sets, the same
old clichéd sounds, only then will dance music be
able to gatecrash its way past the million guitar bands
out there and back into widespread favour. Someone must
drag it out of its formulaic malaise but, on the strength
of Sound Advice, that is not going to be a task performed
by the Shapeshifters.
Simon
Marlin and Max Reich may have produced one of the biggest
floor-fillers of 2005 with Lola's Theme and followed that
up with the similarly disco-led success Back To Basics but
they seem happy to let dance music rest on its decaying
mainstream laurels. The fact that they proclaim that dance
music is not dead, oh no, not at all, on Over Me and use
a syrupy ballad to convey their message just serves to reinforce
that fact.
What
made dance music so exciting was the fact it was constantly
evolving, always changing as new sounds and styles emerged.
It never stood still to catch its breath. Now it sits there
lazily wondering why people feel uncomfortable to speak
its name, lost in a nostalgic haze of its past glories.
Perhaps it is too much to expect an act who have targetted
the more commercial end of mainstream dance music from the
start to reinvigorate the genre.
In
fact non-dance moments abound on this offering, demonstrating
that the duo have more strings to their bow than mere floor-filling
anthem slinging. You Never Know is straight-forward pop,
catchy yet ultimately throwaway, but perhaps that is as
pop should be. Sensitivity is also drenched in a gooey pop
slick with disco coursing through its veins, which is hardly
surprising when you discover it is a collaborative effort
with 'le freaks' Chic.
The
standout track is the chart-topping, filtered disco hit
though. You may have heard Lola's Theme to death by now
but it still has that irresistible quality that makes you
want to jump up and start making shapes: a taste of last
summer that is the perfect antidote to the current bone-freezing
cold. Much of what else is on offer is fairly featureless,
however. Current single Incredible's acoustic guitars may
lend a hint of Basement Jaxx to proceedings
but it lacks the potential to become a Rendezvous-style
classic.
Those
expecting more dancefloor oriented fare should look to simple
house infusion Really Feel and the hands-in-the-air simplicity
of If In Doubt Go Out, both of which are well-crafted rabble
rousers. Other mini peaks and troughs are Beautiful Heartache,
with its orchestral strength and wispy female vocals, echoing
Hybrid's classy classical dance and Little
Green Men which errs too far into incidental territory:
ideal background music for Football Focus perhaps.
Final
track, Instead Of Falling, sees the album close in the same
vein it started, veering back into pop territory once again:
this time an overproduced, overpolished effort that creates
such an inconsequential aural sheen you may well find your
ears switch off half way through.
This
is the sound of dance music with its feet up, lost in a
fit of nostalgia, as it regurgitates moments from its glittering
past. Exciting, innovative, forward-looking dance music
does still exist out there but this album merely provides
more ammunition for those proclaiming its death. Formulaic,
safe and at times unimaginative, Sound Advice does little
to bend the rules, let alone break them, but it does have
some nice melodies and an unashamed commercial direction
that may well see it spawn a few more top twenty singles
yet.
-
Ian Roullier |