DEATH IN VEGAS Twist And Crawl (Concrete)

Everything I know about Death In Vegas amounts to the following: they supported The Chemical Brothers on their recent British tour (which, in the world of tunes that go boom, is roughly akin to being Oasis’ warm-up act) and their debut album "Dead Elvis" has been garnering much ‘dance-music-for-people-who-don’t-normally-like-dance-music’-type acclaim. Which, on the evidence of "Twist And Crawl", seems to be not entirely misplaced. Former Beat merchant and General Public member Ranking Roger toasts over it in a ragga stylee, and the end product is not unpleasant. More innovation can be found in the double-bass-riddled "Opium Shuffle" and the superior Monkey Mafia mix of same, which features what sounds like HAL 2000 reciting the lyrics to Public Enemy’s "Fight The Power", which can’t be bad. But the way I haven’t rushed out to buy the album suggests that, such good intentions aside, Death In Vegas have some way to go before they can fashion music that can crush skulls with such disarming ease as that brewed up by the brothers Chemical.