Homelands Ireland - The Album

While last September's Homelands Ireland debut was unquestionably a great day out, the sleeve notes here take the hyperbole to new found hyperbollocks levels.

"Dance is the new religion", "The history of the Irish dance scene has begun" and other such platitudes are exactly the kind of elitist crap that alienates a wider audience from electronic music.

Aside from the ludicrously self-congratulatory tone, this selection of 'massive tracks' is a fairly predictable mixture of the cream of current commercial heavyweights.

Cinematic big beat from The Propellerheads kicks off the anthem marathon, closely followed by the classic Basement Jaxx floor-filler 'Jump 'n' Shout' and the rumbling loop of 'Phat Planet' from this year's headliners Leftfield. The prime moments are pure mid-nineties vintage in the shape of The Orb's timeless 'Little Fluffy Clouds' and Underworld's 'Cowgirl'.

Interestingly, aside from the superb 'Snyper' from Hybrid, the most emotionally gripping moments are the vocal contributions from Iggy Pop and Bobby Gillespie on Death in Vegas' garage-punk doom disco rocker 'Aisha' and the Scream's Chemical-enhanced lash out at "military-industrial illusions of democracy" respectively. What would have been a perfectly politicised and adrenalised moment to end the mix is sabotaged by Fatboy Slim's 'Everybody Needs A Carnival', which is no more than a watery re-take on his seminal breakthrough classic 'Everybody Needs A 303'.

However, it must be said that it's a pretty solid and eclectic mix aside from the cheese trance diversions. Irish contributions come from Agnelli and Nelson and David Holmes, yet it's a real shame that the Homelands compilation team didn't opt for Mister Spring's 'Blaxxtraxx' smash from last year. Tellingly enough, it was the British brigade who really pushed that track, with Norman Cook predicting that the after trance mainstream dance would be led by Spring's pioneering sound.

Are we always going to be led by foreign superstars and superclubs? C'mon! - we should be confident and daring enough to push our own sounds by now! Just let the music do the talking.