Groove Armada: Lovebox

By RUSSELL BAILLIE

(Herald rating: * * * )

The fourth album by the London duo follows the usual pattern of albums by once studio-bound dance outfits which have mutated into live bands. Eventually they just want to rock and rope in singers who can really belt one out. Here that means plenty of guitars crackling through the beats. Opener Purple Haze samples not Hendrix but pub rock kings Status Quo, Madder seems to rewrite the Clash's Rock the Casbah as a shouty
sub-Prodigy track. The voices ranges from from Brit-dance diva Neneh Cherry, folk-soul veteran Richie Havens (on laidback highlight Hands of Time) while Remember samples Fairport Convention's Sandy Denny singing the 70s folk-rock band's Autopsy.

If that sounds like a bit of a shake-up, it only goes so far. That Denny track comes out a bit Portishead, the Cherry tracks aren't anything special, the big dancefloor numbers Final Shakedown and But I Feel Good have only their big beats to recommend them. The pair's album-before-last Vertigo was a dance-music-for-the-couch classic, but this one can't decide whether it wants to seduce you at home or take you out for a night on the tiles first.

Label: Jive