Muzikizum

It's this track history that makes their debut album so enticing for fans of quality house music. While it isn't the greatest-thing-since-sliced-bread opus we'd anticipated, it is certainly a very fine house album--and very fine house albums are notoriously hard to make. Wisely, the trio have chosen to supplement their greatest adrenaline-pumping moments--the New York meets Brighton prog-funk of "Muzikizum" and "Smoke Machine"--with a variety of deeper, techier and more uplifting cuts. So, we get the poppy "Call That Love" (featuring Basement Jaxx/Fila Brazillia vocalist Steve Edwards), the spacey "Angel" and the old skool piano rush of closer "The Ending". It's all solid, goodtime stuff, but there's little here to match the pop genius of David Byrne collaboration "Lazy" easily the album's stand-out moment. As a result, Muzikizum is merely a good album, rather than a great one.--Matt Anniss