Music Platters: Basement Jaxx – Scars (XL)

The UK’s premiere dance duo’s first album since 2006, Scars will herald a return to form for fans, but for everyone else it will seem too little too late, an aftertaste of an era in stadium dance music many would prefer to forget.

The problem for a non-Basement Jaxx fan like myself is that what they do in their production room is impressive. There’s always a surplus of ideas floating around and aurally, they produce the goods. The sound is fulsome, with plenty of bottom end and everything else up to dog-worrying tweeter action.

But for all the studio graft and creativity, and the range of collaborators they get onboard (including Amp Fiddler, Paloma Faith and even Yoko Ono) the songs are way less memorable than the tunes are danceable.

By and large, this is a frantic mix of party beats that sounds like it’s willing itself out of recession and into party mode; but for all that, it’s call to club floor doesn’t quite convince.

Basement Jaxx never quite had the style or essence of cool of groups like Daft Punk, and their grooves were often a hotch-potch of decades-worth of groove exploits, from ’70s frunk through to Prince, melded with the stadium House of Amand van Helden and his horrible compatriots. This time round they gather up all the elements that made them popular in the first place, but it all feels a little after the fact.

Having said that, I’m sure plenty of us will be firing up the barbecue this Summer with Scars banging away in the background. GARY STEEL

2.5 Stars