Yahoo! Music Album Review

Released on 27/11/06
Label: Columbia

There are few things in life as tedious as the over-enthusiastic new parent. These are the kind of people who, six week after successful reproduction, will recount in painful and minute detail every cry in the night, every feeding and every filled nappy as if no one else has ever had a baby and, after pausing for breath, will then tell you how they view the world through different eyes; how the world we live in is a cruel and terrifying place and how that person will do their utmost to protect their offspring no matter what. Of course, there are plenty of parents who just get on with the job in hand, making lifestyle adjustments accordingly.

Well, those masters of coffee-table techno Faithless are back and, with new sprogs in tow, fall into the former category of those described above. For Rollo, Sister Bliss and Maxi Jazz the world has always been a terrible place, one corrupted by politicians, war-mongers and power-brokers. But with "To All The New Arrivals" their hectoring is so hand-wringing as to be buttock-clenchingly unbearable. For sure, lead-off track and single "Bombs" has its heart in the right place, as the obscenity that is the Iraq war is justifiably condemned, but the smooth production and almost self-satisfied languor that characterises it saps it of any power.

But what makes "To All The New Arrivals" such a knuckle-chewing experience is its concern with children; not just your children or your mate's children, but all of our children and the children of the world. So it is that the title track, a vapid piece of tastefully non-offensive techno, reminds us of child maleria rates and AIDS related infant mortality, but is delivered with such over-sincerity as to be counter-productive. And if "Spiders, Crocodiles And Kryptonite" wasn't bad enough with its wholesale steal of The Cure's "Lullaby" (see what's going on here?), Faithless then stick their latest family addition over the end of the track playing around in the studio.

Ensuring the family vibe is kept up, auntie Dido pops up to lend her slightly off-key vocal talents - embellished with that bizarre faux-Irish accent that is her trademark - on "Last This Day", another ponderous exercise in polite electronica, to consider the endless reproductive cycle that is the human race while concluding that kids are the future. No sh*t, Sherlock. Ultimately, "To All New Arrivals" is the musical equivalent of those parents who justify the purchase of a 4x4 on the grounds of keeping 'the little ones' safe from harm while belching poison into the atmosphere. And like that excuse, this is an album that just doesn't wash.

    by Julian Marszalek