Yahoo! Music Album Review

Released on 04/09/06
Label: XL Recordings

There's an old muso gag that defines "perfect pitch" as the ability to throw a banjo into a dustbin without it touching the sides. Ba-doom-tish! As the frenetic beats and annoying plinking and plonking of the four tightly wound strings on "Take Me Back To Your House" emanate from the speakers, it's difficult not to recall Rednex's execrable novelty dance hit "Cotton Eye Joe" and the realisation dawns that Basement Jaxx have become a sorry parody of themselves.

Rewind to 1999: Basement Jaxx's ridiculously catchy floor-filler "Jump'n'Shout" marked the Brixton duo of Simon Ratcliffe and Felix Buxton down as Britain's most exciting dance act by virtue of an abundance of ideas and mixing of styles that was as audacious as it was fun; disco beats, riffs, dancehall reggae, acid house and attitude all rubbed shoulders with each other to create a new generation of sounds aimed squarely at the feet with hedonism residing at the core. Fast-forward to 2006 and "Crazy Itch Radio" - the pair's fourth album - is the sound of an act running out of steam as it settles for the lowest common denominator with a nonchalant shrug of the shoulders.

Once pro-active and pioneering, Basement Jaxx are spending too much time playing catch-up. The strolling jazz grooves of "On The Train" suggest that Gnarls Barklay hasn't been too far from the turntable, while the ill-advised introduction of Balkan folk on "Hey U" finds Ratcliffe and Buxton making an unsuccessful attempt to clear the bar that they themselves had set with their own original vision.

Thankfully, Basement Jaxx haven't completely lost the ability to thrill and delight; "Skillatude"'s smooth grooves and elasticated bass pulses are luxuriously wonderful and the feat is repeated with "Light Go Down"'s sophisticated opulence but given the down-tempo nature of these highlights, alarm bells begin to ring. The attempts at the wild abandon that characterised their earlier output - see "Hush Boy" and "Everybody" - are too obvious to convince while falling well short of the sheer joy provided by the urgent and energetic "Run 4 Cover".

"Crazy Itch Radio" all too frequently feels like an album made by a focus group made up of the higher economic echelons of Hoxton and Notting Hill and is as far from the street as the 102nd floor of the Empire State Building. All in all, this is one itch that can't be scratched.

    by James Marshall