Beat Corp - Permanent Jetlag (www.beatcorp.com)

Mixing contrasting styles of music on one CD can have a few different outcomes. The best are groundbreaking and original, redefining music as we know it, then you get the ones that are somewhat interesting, but not amazing, then you get the ones where the band fails to stamp its own identity on the sound and it sounds like a compilation rather than one band and finally, you get stuff that just sounds like a complete mess.

Beat Corp are somewhere in the middle, interesting at times, but lacking in identity at other times. It starts off well with the 'Beat Corp theme', a slightly trip-hop sounding track with a dose of American college rock on top. The next two tracks, 'Disturbing love song' and 'mSoul (in the field)', increase the rock element and the trip-hop sound gives way to a more rocky electronic sound. All fine to that point.

Then there's 'I wish', a slow acoustic song that doesn't quite fit, it's got more of an Eels sound than the rest, but one track out of place wouldn't ruin an album. 'Come together' is back to the previous style. While 'Idea' is a bit like Alabama 3 with the gospel replaced by a rockier sound, a little electronica, but it's an overlong and somewhat tiresome track. The paratrooper mix of 'BC Theme' livens it up a lot, bringing it closer to some of the more metallic hip-hop bands, not quite nu-metal, more old school crossover with a dark edge. 'Vacancies' has shades of some of the very tired post-NIN "industrial" US scene.

It's not a bad CD, it does have potential, but they different ways they put the elements they use together are a bit too different at times. The pacing is somewhat uneven and it doesn't quite hold the interest all the way through.

Donnacha DeLong