Outrospective

There’s a fair helping of standard Faithless tracks on Outrospective. The sinister dance epics ‘We Come 1’ and the dark and dangerous ‘Tarantula’ come from a familiar place. But the magic of Outrospective lies in the unexpected, which is magic thankfully in abundance.

Weird is not the word for the almost Leo Sayer-ish ballad ‘Not Enuff Love’, while the haunted folky feel of the stunning ‘Evergreen’ has a kind of choral medieval quality. There’s a taste of Everything But The Girl in the blissful haze of ‘Crazy English Summer’, featuring new singer Zoe Dickson, (a real find) – thank God Dido didn’t get her insipid tonsils on that one, although she does crop up on the gentle and unarresting ‘One Step Too Far’.

Dido’s brother Rollo Armstrong is the man responsible for the wonderfully evocative hues on Faithless records, the sudden sense of cloudbursts or birdsong, real and implied, which create the deeply atmospheric quality of these songs.

One of the most quietly powerful songs is ‘Giving Myself Away’ in which Maxi Jazz draws a painfully incisive portrait of a fundamentally flawed relationship, but Outrospective, as the title suggests, is nowhere near as gloomy an album as Sunday 8PM. ‘Machines R Us’ is an amusing confusion of whirring mechanical meltdown, while, sticking out like a sore thumb (by virtue of the fact that it doesn’t possess any inherent air of strangeness) is the floaty-light feel-good Philly Soul of ‘Muhammed Ali’, Maxi’s ode to his childhood hero, which is strongly reminiscent, believe it or not, of the Fun Lovin’ Criminals’ Barry White tribute ‘Love Unlimited’.

Outrospective is a triumph of eclecticism, which will appeal to clubbers as well as those who wouldn’t normally consider themselves fans of dance music. Have faith.