Basement Jaxx – Scars

Ten years and half as many albums later, Basement Jaxx has released their fifth studio album, Scars. The UK house music duo of Felix Buxton and Simon Ratcliffe have once again assembled a mass of unique and eager cohorts to make this album pop, including Kelis, Santigold, Sam Sparro, Amp Fiddler, Yoko Ono and more. There’s no Lily Allen or Robyn (there she is again!) on this one, but it’s still pretty damn good.
The duo has released another album full of classic club hits and some no frills tracks for heavy mixing. It’s missing their classic interludes though! Where are the interludes, guys!? It seems like the lack of downtime makes the tracks run together far more than they should. The tracks are good, don’t get me wrong, but now they lack the right staging to truly make them remarkable. It’s like matting the Mona Lisa in neon pink and green polka dots.

The tracks themselves are fucking rad though. “What’s A Girl Got To Do”, featuring Paloma Faith, has got to be one of my favorite songs on this album. Very Rooty. Very “Romeo” and “Get Me Off”. It’s Basement Jaxx’ sexy party time. “Stay Close” featuring Lisa Kekaula and “D.I.S.tractionz” featuring Jose Hendrix have a really laid back vibe for Jaxx. Almost a Zero 7 ambient quality to them.

But then they go all out, balls to the wall, reckless abandon with funky ass tracks like, “Twerk” featuring Yo! Majesty and “Raindrops”. Also, they have this classic 50′s doo-wop vibe with a hip-hop twist goin’ on in tracks like, “She’s No Good” featuring Eli “Paperboy” Reed and “A Possibility” featuring Amp Fiddler. Deep, sexy male vocals with just that right amount of female backing that makes it harmonize so goddamn well.

This has become one of those albums that the more I listen to it, the more I like it. Like I said, there’s no interludes, and it is lacking some of the complexity of Rooty and Kish Kash, but it’s an all around good album with a few solid club hits. B

Basement Jaxx’ Site