Everything But the Girl

ou may remember the Sneaker Pimps from about four years ago when their "hit," "6 Underground," appeared on The Saint soundtrack, boasting a weak, squeaky female lead over slow synths and a throbbing bassline.

So, you can imagine my surprise when I listened to the Sneaker Pimps' latest effort, Bloodsport, and hear... a guy. After some research, I found that the girl, one Kelli Dayton, was never really part of the group--she just sang lead vocals on the first album (Becoming X) and toured with them for two years. The guys' website says they decided they no longer wished to be compared to the two-guy-one-girl configuration trip hop bands (Note: Sneaker Pimps are NOT trip hop), so they kicked her out--and the result is decidedly blah.

Now, it should be noted that Becoming X sucked. The songs that made it to radio were remixed... heavily. Technically, Bloodsport is far superior to anything the Pimps have put out to date. Its merits include a dark, brooding atmospheric sound, twisted around blends of acoustic guitars, warbling synths, speaker-popping bass grooves and mid-tempo syncopated techno beats. The vocals aren't great, but they're not bad, though the synthesized falsetto is a problem.

This album is not horrible--but that doesn't mean it's good, either. The same qualities that make it decent also make it dull and monotonous. Bloodsport suffers from a lack of variety, and songs seem to merely melt into one another. It seems that the most daring thing the Pimps thought to do was to lace in the acoustic guitar (Note to Pimps: The whole "organic techno" thing is over--move on). The title track serves as the standout and also as the only place where the album picks up the pace and (Gasp!) actually delivers a memorable hook.

Overall, this is an album you might want to keep around if you're big into that whole Depeche Mode set, but even still, you may not want to listen to Bloodsport more than once.