Babilonia

There's an agreeable rock influence coming to the fore on this Italian band's latest album. But those distorted guitar chords are only the half of it. Yiddish melodies dip into reggae, rap breaks and Middle Eastern chanting all add to the over-seasoned soup. They even sound like an Italian Abba on a couple of tracks. The ghastly ‘Fight Club’ is a funky but clunky attempt at a protest song that sabotages itself simply by being too perky for its sombre cliché-riddled content. If you like relentlessly catchy, galloping fusion music then look no further. At one juncture the combination of gruff male vocals and harmonising female vocals operating in a call-and-response manner made me think this is what Lo’Jo might sound like if they took some happy pills – God forbid! There's certainly nothing to cause offence here but maybe that's partly the problem. They are probably great fun live.