Silicone Soul - Save Our Souls (Soma)

Save Our Souls adheres to the boys' stylistic blueprint of atmospheric house music that uses a full four to the floor beat and solid basslines to support the warm, spacey textures above.

This gives the music a nocturnal, cinematic quality, evoking images of driving under starry skies at the height of summer. And while these beats might not be pushing the boundaries of invention, they are consistently good the whole way through.

Instrumental grooves dominate, which is a shame given one of their best tracks from the previous album, Feeling Blue, featured a great vocal. It also removes a crucial element of variety from their music. That said, all these tunes will sound great in a dark club, vocals or not.

There's even room for a decent flute solo, not a known quantity in house music. Brian Molley gets the honour on Snakecharmer, making his enchanting sound part of the overall picture rather than overindulging in the manner soloists so often do.

Snakecharmer is one of the softer grooves on the album, but Silicone Soul sound best when they toughen the beats up. This boosts Margin For Madness, where a darker keyboard strain threatens in the middle foreground. Better still is As The Stars Become The Sun, building impressively from a straightforward slap bass riff to take in layer upon layer of string orchestration, working through to a formidable climax.

Some of the tracks are musical wallpaper when listened to on the home stereo, which isn't meant as a criticism - merely an observation that they blend in well as up-tempo chill out tracks. Put them on in a club and it's a different story, with those beats and bass a rock solid foundation.

If they haven't already done so Silicone Soul should be branching into film or game soundtracks; such is their aptitude for atmospheric house music. Even so soon on the back of their second album, the third is a solid achievement.

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