It was never going to be easy for Death in Vegas to match the heights of The Contino Sessions, the 1999 album that became a massive sleeper hit and made Richard Fearless and Tim Holmes amongst the most famous DJ's in Britain. In the event, while Scorpio Rising isn't quite in the same league, it's a decent enough follow-up that confirms the pair as two of the most admirable mavericks left in modern dance music. While the album retains a basic blueprint of techno-rock and edgy electronica, virtually every one of its ten tracks is completely different, making it sound more like a patchy compilation than a fully-formed artist record. Where it really stands or falls is on the strength of its guest vocalists - and here, happily, there are far more hits than misses. Liam Gallagher turns in a great, Lennonesque performance on the title track (presumably happy to be given a decent song for a change), while elsewhere Hope Sandoval, Dot Allison and Nicola Kuperos add a welcome feminine dimension to DIV's psychedelia-tinged compositions. Paul Weller, on the other hand, sounds woefully out of place on a plodding cover of Gene Clark's 'So You Say You Lost Your Baby' - but really, the less said about that the better. An inconsistent album - but one whose high points make it well worth checking out.
