The press blurb invites your reviewer to ‘Think Ozric Tentacles meets Jean Michel Jarre and Kraftwerk, meets elements of 60’ (sic) psychedelia and 70’s prog with a pinch of chill music.’ I do as I’m bid, and decide I probably don’t want to listen to the album. I mean, thinking about Ozric Testicles is enough, surely? I’m old enough to remember all that crusty shit, the dreadlocks and baggy jumpers, cheap cider and the smell of dope and Body Shop products. And for what it’s worth, if there’s one thing sure to make me tense, it’s ‘chill music’. The lazy trumpets of Groove Armada’s ‘At The River’ makes me want to go on a murderous rampage (although the fact my flatmate used to play it on a loop while shagging probably did little to endear that particular track to me).
So listening to ‘Another Round Please’ isn’t only against my better judgement, it’s against medical advice too.
It transpires that ‘Another Round Please’ isn’t the shitcake mish-mash of all things nasty I’d been led to expect. I’d been braced for aural wattle and daub, sonic spew of a night’s chronic overindulgence. All Rendezvous deliver is turgid trance, albeit of the worst kind – kaleidoscopic electro doodles with bleepy computer-game style faux fanfares and pseudo pan pipes. It’s the kind of stuff Jean Michel Jarre and Jan Hammer used to fire out that was a bit futuristic 30 to 35 years ago. Bloopy, bloppy, flippy, floppy, bubbling, bibbling bass and electronica that really doesn’t go anywhere, it leaves the listener feeling as though they’re hemmed in an endless tunnel.
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The good news is that ‘Another Round Please’ didn’t make me want to kill people, although I did almost die of boredom.
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