Yahoo! Music Album Review

Released on 29/08/05
Label: Faith & Hope

If an A&R man with a weakness for Four Tet were to demand an act that turned the Hebden template into advert-bothering Moby-lite, Mint Royale are what he might end up with. After all, at least one track here - the cunningly-titled "Harpy" - attempts the hitherto unthinkable and blurs the lines between the Chemical Brothers and folktronica.

Suppose we were to create this ultra-marketable commodity, Hebden's clattering jazz beats would be the first thing to go. Then the acoustic elements would need reconfiguring. Instead of obscure folk textures, the guitars could perhaps bring to mind poddle-haired 80s crooners Extreme and their hit, "More Than Words". Then some vocals to lift things: draft in a few divas for hire and a YTS rapper or two.

Emerging from the short-lived big beat scene, Mint Royale were present as dance music made the crucial miscalculations which must hold some blame for its current malaise. Foremost amongst these was its shift to more organic sounds and song structures. It was this, surely, that found big beat a place in the heartland of indie. But, increasingly, it appears that this shift resulted in the personality crisis that has landed us with albums like this, a record desperately at sea, throwing everything out of the boat to keep it afloat. Hebden's Four Tet, thankfully, remains resolutely electronic, acoustic sounds being subject to production methods and song structures handed down from hip hop and dance.

All the wreckage of the dance act-turned-songsmiths is on show here: agonisingly naive lyrics ("Wait For You"), pseudo gravitas ("The Effect On Me"), a crippling debt to the twin deities of Groove Armada and the Chemical Brothers. The ideas factory, you can only conclude, has ceased trading. Unforgivably, "I Don't Care" breaks no ground not already covered by BBE's rave era hit, "Snappiness".

"World", like opener "Wait For You", berates its own public for a herdish stupidity. Sample lyrics find people "clouded by their ignorance", with "stolen thoughts and plastic friends", living a life that is "just a production line". Yet, you suspect that, had Mint Royale not adopted such a sneering approach to their audience, "See You In The Morning" might have at least a flicker of imagination.

    by James Poletti