Groove Armada: Vertigo : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

The British duo Groove Armada has been titillating European nightclubbers for months with tracks like the booty-shaking "I See You Baby." On their U.S. album debut, Vertigo, funky hip-hop chills with live, jazzy orchestral romps, and deep house beats team with Sly Stone funk. Frenetic dance-floor killers such as "If Everybody Looks the Same" make you break a sweat just listening, but the dominant mood here is Valium cool. "At the River," with its lazy trombone riff, evokes the pastoral perfectness of the English countryside -- pints of ale, cream teas and quaint, sleepy villages -- while the dreamy easy-listening cheese of "Serve Chilled" and "Dusk, You and Me" bubbles and fizzes like flutes of Veuve Clicquot. Not wanting to be outdone by their cross-Channel rivals Air, Groove Armada triumph less by massive groove attacks and more by laid-back seduction. (RS 836)

SARAH PRATT