In a year that's seen numerous dance acts release disappointing sophomore albums, implying their creativity was expended on their debut, Groove Armada dish up a third album that has as much depth as their previous two.
Stuffed full of collaborations, the duo has created a multi layered, analogue driven, polished yet powerful long player.
And rather than assembling a band to perform their music, Tom Findlay and Andy Cato have formed an orchestra.
On top of guests on vocals, such as Juru the Damaja, Richie Havens, Rachel Brown, Celetia Martin, M.A.D, MG, and Kriminal, the boys have enlisted (deep breath) Keeling Lee and Nile Rodgers on guitar, Jonathan White on bass, Andy Treacy on drums, Patrick Dawes on percussion, Dominic Glover on Trumpet, Mike Smith on sax, Mat Coleman on trombone, DJ Search spinning and scratching, Dan Hewson arranging strings and UrbanSoul Orchestra playing them and Kenny and Stu doing the all important hand claps.
The album opens with a characteristically low slung Guru the Damaja guest performance on 'Suntoucher', before sweeping into an orchestral passage that acts as a bridge into the ragga, dance hall of the single 'Superstylin'.
'Drifted' again lowers the pace and, despite interesting changes, fails to find its mark, while long serving folk-soul singer Richie Havens delivers an up dated Bill Withers soul pop ballad on 'Little By Little'.
By contrast 'Fogma' returns to the heavy ragga bass, lines, gurgling synth sounds and trademark Groove Armada funk guitar licks.
This paves the way for 'My Friend', a superb, light and breezy summer jazz funk pop tune featuring Celetia Martin, which is destined for as many chill out compilations as 'The Beach'.
'Lazy Moon' is a long, drawn out tune that's suddenly finds itself dashed on the rocks by the awesome break-house-rap of 'Rasin' The Stakes', featuring Kriminal on mic duty. Richie Havens returns for 'Healing', which is otherwise a locked down four to the floor deep house track.
'Edge Hill' is like 'The Beach' given epic Hollywood production, 'Tuning in' returns to ragga house crossed into Asian R&B and 'Join Hands' closes the album with a trombone line that again harkens back to 'The Beach'.
On the down side there are a few too many similarities between some of the tracks here and the band's most widely known chill out track, as if they're desperately searching for 'The Beach' part two.
This has the obvious effect and, with the noteable exception of 'My Friend', the best offerings come from the up pace, bass heavy ragga influenced tracks such as 'Superstylin' and 'Raisin' the Stakes'.
by Ben Osborne