Yahoo! Music Album Review

Released on 17/07/06
Label: Echo

Ask yourself two questions. Has anyone ever told you Moloko were their favourite band? And if not, can you even imagine such a person existing? If you answered no both times, this sums up the problem with Moloko. Despite substantial chart success, some excellent singles and mostly admiring press, Moloko always seemed aloof - easy to admire, but difficult to love.

So when the Guardian greeted Roisin Murphy's solo album last year with the phrase "admired by fashion magazines and serious music tomes alike" it was meant as a compliment, but read like a damnation. Even when Moloko were making gaudy dancefloor smashes like "Sing It Back", they always seemed to keep their distance, hiding behind a glossy quirkiness and hipster smarm that suggested they were above it all. Just listen to the mannered, look-at-me vocals on the otherwise brilliantly squelchy "Fun For Me", or the practically audible smirk you can hear in "Indigo"'s nonsense lyrics.

So does this greatest hits collection confirm that Moloko were a fringe band, briefly fashionable but doomed to be forgotten with the One Doves, the Oui 3s, the Lambs? Or will it earn them a minor place in the book of pop history? It's simply too early to say. What can be confirmed is that despite its slinky catchiness "Sing It Back" now sounds dated, frozen in an Ibiza sunset of long ago. This could be blamed on overfamiliarity, as it seemed to have been stapled to most radio station's turntables in 1999.

Yet their other major hits have survived the years intact, with both "Familiar Feelings" and "The Time Is Now" pulling off ingenious, near identical tricks by combining slow burning grooves and crystalline vocals and topping them off with ravishing choruses. Nothing else quite matches these peaks, but "Cannot Contain This" has a fluttery, sultry chic, while "Pure Pleasure Seeker" has a riveting brass riff and a nearly deranged carnal drive which makes it perfect to dance to. Yet elsewhere tracks like "Emotionally Bankrupt" fail to connect, aiming for glacial but falling short at plain cold and dull.

In the end, thirteen tracks isn't a huge amount to show for a four album, ten year career, but there are more than enough askew pleasures here to earn it a place in your record collection. How often you'll be playing it in five years time is entirely another matter.