8 / 10
Life is all about finding your niche. And, after five albums of
intermittently great techno jiggery-pokery, Luke Slater has
settled on a quite stunning sound for 'Alright On Top'. You could
call it electro-pop, most will, but we're not talking cheap drum
machines and one-finger synth riffs here. Rather, we're talking solid,
meaty tracks powered by a fierce, fuzzy energy that Slater contains
between the cleanest of clean lines. If it is electro-pop, it's
electro-pop of a consistent quality not heard since DJ Hell's rather
more restrained 'Munich Machine'.
From thundering opener 'Nothing At All' through to pulsing finale 'Doctor Of Divinity',
Slater never loses the momentum, easing through the Teutonic-pop gears
like Michael Schumacher. While The Aloof's Ricky Barrow, a man who
could imbue a regional weather forecast with a certain yearning hurt,
teases out the melancholy implicit in all motoring machine music.
Really, you need this in your life.
Tony Naylor
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