The Middle of Nowhere

GENIUS ALBUM and all that, but if I was a contemporary of Fatboy Slim's I'd hate the bastard for coming up with You've Come A Long Way, Baby.

I mean, how do you compete with something that even the most begrudging of rockists would have to agree is the Pet Sounds/Dark Side Of The Moon/Never Mind The Bollocks/Meat Is Murder* (*delete where applicable) of its generation?

In Orbital's case, they haven't even bothered trying. While all around them go big beat in the pursuit of big bucks, the Hartnoll brothers have resolutely stuck to their techno boffin guns and produced a record that Zoe Ball wouldn't even think of walking down the aisle with.

Not that there aren't jollies aplenty to be had from 'Style' which starts off like Joy Division with a bad hangover and then, courtesy of a wayward stylophone, mutates into the sort of hypnotic mantra that Kraftwerk used to produce before they went completely barking.

As if paying homage to Rolf Harris wasn't perverse enough, the 10-minute 'Spare Parts Express' takes time out from being epic to reconfigurate the jingly bit at the end of John Craven's Newsround. You don't need a degree in British kitsch, though, to appreciate its merits. Unlike your St. Etiennes and Bentley Rhythm Aces, the Hartnolls realise that clever dickery is no substitute for a corking tune.

This modus operandi works to particularly good effect on 'Way Out', the theme to an imaginary Star Trek movie which takes Ofra Haza and Miles Davis into orbit with it.

Old skool purists will be relieved to hear that that's as poppy as proceedings get - 'Know Where To Run' a nightmarish ride on the Detroit underground, and 'I Don't Know You People' the type of thing that the Jesus ... Mary Chain might have done if they'd discovered Derrick Carter before Brian Wilson.

None of which prepares the unsuspecting listener for the shock of Orbital doing a proper song. In a move akin to Dylan going electric, the boys have pruned 'Otoñio' back to a radio-friendly five minutes and brought former blanco y negro signings Pooka in to do the vocals. Yup, you read that right, vocals.

Having gone to so much trouble, it's a shame that the end product sounds like Garbage after a particularly debilitating bout of 'flu. The return to health is as swift as it is spectacular - 'Nothing Left Part 1' demonstrates that when the mood takes them, Orbital can be every bit as savage in their use of basslines as The Prodigy. Just when you think they can't throw any more into the mix, up pops the vocoder from hell to bring the track to an x-rated climax.

While it doesn't batter one's sausage in quite the same way, the funkier 'Part 2' is still superior to anything you're likely to hear on a Kiss, Cream or Ministry compilation.

They're never going to be flavours of the month, but in terms of staying power you've got to fancy Orbital to be around long after this year's blonde.