Strange Attitude

The voice of Stardust’s massive hit ‘Music Sounds Better With You’ Benjamin Diamond has the perfect tones for dirty dance anthems, but nothing here comes close to former glory. Hailing from France as Diamond does, the album is Air-brushed and Daft Punked in places, but lacks the nuance or the sparkle of either. This kind of repetitive groove can work amazingly well, but grows tedious if the hooks aren’t up to it. They generally aren’t.

It’s sleazy downbeat disco, bizarrely evocative of white socks, hair gel and lame chat up lines, but just not hi-energy enough to really grab you. Diamond’s off-kilter foreign-tongue phrasing also tends to jar a bit.

There are a fair few points in favour, though. While flimsy, the latent funkiness and sheer oddness of tracks like ‘Little Scare’ and ‘In Your Arms (We Gonna Make It)’ causes the album to insinuate itself under your skin after repeated listens.

Other welcome touches include the breathy Donna Summery backing vocals on ‘18 & Over’ and a pretty cool version of the eighties track ‘The Rain’.

It’s not bad for an undemanding boogie round the floor, although most tracks are overlong and lacking in lustre. Sounds better with Stardust.