MJ Cole: Sincere

(Talkin' Loud)

Herald rating: * * * *

Review: Russell Baillie

It may be - as our garage piece on the opposite page explains - that MJ Cole is about to earn international name-drop status as the British dance genre's first break-out star.

Fortunately, he's got a solid album to back it up, a collection that is a shiny thing throughout and sleekly propelled by garage's curiously delicate beats.

But because of its vocal emphasis it also sounds like it could be one of those pivotal moments in Britsoul, the next in the lineage which extends back through the likes of Soul II Soul, the Stereo MCs and a few other outfits which sounded all-too-briefly like the sound of a particularly groovy future.

Time will tell on that one. But it's certainly a far livelier and more inviting affair than its natural predecessor, Roni Size/Reprazent's drum'n'bass flag-bearer New Forms.

On Sincere, Cole manages to both make his mutant dancefloor form sound exciting and keep a sense of song.

That's at best on the title track and the torch-tune moods of Sanctuary (sung by Cole's chief vocal collaborator Elisabeth Troy), and the disco-ish double of Crazy Love and Rough Out Here.

It can get a bit hip-hop around edges, and while that's fairly exciting on the bad boy rumble of Bandelero Desperado, the pirate radio interludes come on like indulgent, dated rap album hand-me-downs.

So, not quite a club classic. But a flash and fashionable booty-shaker that offers a musical warmth to go with Cole's hot status.