praise him

Halfway Between The Gutter And The Stars Fatboy Slim (Skint) HHHH It could so easily have been very different. Given the usual response by mega-selling acts to the arduous task of actually recording the follow-up, it's little short of a miracle that Fatboy Slim's third album isn't an angst-ridden slice of post-millennium gloom.

The good news is that the uplifting spirit of You've Come A Long Way, Baby is still present and correct perhaps too present, but you can't have everything. When Halfway Between disappoints it does so because it sticks too closely to the blueprint laid down by its predecessor. Ya Mama, for instance, pulls off Cook's old trick of harnessing an insanely catchy sample to a relentless funk rhythm but does so with rather less aplomb than in the old days. And the decision to use a gospel preacher's sermon makes Drop The Hate sound like Alabama 3 on a bad day, only not as funny.

It's easy to see why so much electronic music annexes gospel's religious intensity, particularly techno produced by white boys sensitive to claims that their music lacks "soul" and "depth", whatever that means. The trouble is that, now Moby has cleaned up, it's impossible to make the combination sound anything other than hopelessly cliched. And while we're dealing with the failures, the single Sunset (Bird Of Prey) pretends to head off towards the ecstasy of trance but can't summon up the energy to even reach the dancefloor.

Luckily, the news isn't all bad. Cook hasn't been resting on his laurels and is most successful when he tries to push his music in new directions, most notably on two "proper" songs featuring the distinctive vocal talents of Macy Gray. Love Life and Demons are funky, slinky and sexy in ways Cook has been unable to master in the past, signalling a realisation that he can no longer rely on sheer dumb glee. When dance acts hook up with traditional song structures the results usually offer the worst of both worlds - tamed rhythms and bland tunes (and let's not even think about the lyrics) - which makes Cook's success all the more surprising.

And there's more, particularly Weapon of Choice, which blows away any doubts you might have about the originality of the proceedings with waves of sheer pleasure.

This has been hailed as Cook's most mature, contemplative album - but then all things are relative. He's moved on but defiantly refused to grow up. Probably the best thing you can say about Fatboy Slim's third LP is that it is not, definitely not, Kid A.

Richard Walker

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