JAMIROQUAI - Synkronized

(Sony)

**

Reviewer: Russell Baillie

Jamiroquai has made quite a lot of money on one simple notion: disco didn't, in fact, suck.

The English outfit who, like Simply Red, is more a "he" than a "they," care of frontman Jay Kay, arrives at album No 4 with that, er, philosophy more resolute than ever.

Well, that's how it seems, right from the first lines you hear from Kay's Stevie Wonder-parrot of a voice ("You know this boogie is for real ... ") on Canned Heat, a song which brings on flashbacks of Heatwave's Boogie Nights and intermediate school socials.

Likewise, Soul Education propels its risible lyrics (not that they're much better anywhere else) with a bit of Shaft bassline and Chic guitars; Butterfly's strings does a fine impersonation of Barry White's Love Unlimited Orchestra. And so on ...

It's at its most Wonder-ous on Black Capricorn Day, which is equal parts blaxploitation theme and Stevie's Superstition, and easily the high point because of that.

There are some odd excursions, like Destitute Illusions, an instrumental of burbling filter-sweeping synths; Supersonic fits didgeridoo into a warped vibe; and the closing King for a Day has an extravagance of quasi-classical piano and strings.

Largely delivered with just the smallest of signs that there's been any development in "dance" music in the past 20 years, once again Jamiroquai's only purpose is to make feelgood music. Which only just occasionally translates to is-good.