Some people are never satisfied.
The way the Stereo MC's return to live and recording duties has been received in certain quarters makes it seem like anything less than a reinvention of the rock'n'roll wheel would have been some sort of ignominious failure. The duo at the heart of the band, Nick Hallam and Rob Birch , have evidently been listening patiently and nodding appreciatively from time to time while the moods and the music they described at the dawn of the 90s have been taken off into different territories by their manifold followers. There's a thorough and uncomplicated, intuitive understanding of the dynamics and textures they're dealing with that only people with considerable experience to add to an evident flair could hope to achieve. What's key to so much music, and what is so often lacking, is in knowing where not to add things. There's so much space between the instruments, vocals and sounds on this album that sometimes you wonder whether it's all going to fall apart.