Review: Basement Jaxx - Scars (* * *)

Felix Buxton and Simon Ratcliffe have, over the course of their ten year career, been consistently adored by fans and critics alike. And they deserve it. The duo, known as Basement Jaxx, made three stellar dance/house albums in a row, and though their 2006 effort, Crazy Itch Radio, didn’t quite earn them the number of accolades they had probably become accustomed to receiving, it seemed nobody gave them too hard a time about it either – but was it a sign of decline or simply a one-time slip? Listening to Scars, the fifth album from the dynamic duo, it would seem unfortunately more like the former, though when measured by its ability to provide a danceable good time, it succeeds well enough to avoid the feeling that Basement Jaxx is really losing their edge. In fact, perhaps the greatest strength and weakness of the album is how closely it follows the star-studded formula the band have been working within since their 2003 breakthrough, Kish Kash. And it’s still entertaining, it just seems that the returns on their approach are diminishing slightly with time.(Continue Reading...)

MySpace