The dust has barely settled from their recent The Singles retrospective but Basement Jaxx are back on the floor with a brand new studio album. Crazy Itch Radio, built around the concept of a radio station (complete with interludes and skits), begins with an absurdly dramatic intro before flowing into the contrastively slinky, feel-good single "Hush Boy", a slick, mellow mash-up of styles that wouldn't be out of place on the duo's kaleidoscopic debut Remedy. Indeed, Crazy Itch… unfolds with a fluidity and infectious joie-de-vivre not really seen since first album. The ease with which tracks like banjo-house anthem "Take Me Back To Your House" and "Hey You!" spill from the speakers in colourful floods of cinematic strings, Balkan folk references, house beats and rock guitars, pays testament to the duo's outstanding studio alchemy. Elsewhere on the album they make grime sound fun ("Run 4 Cover"), pay coruscating tribute to marijuana ("Bubbles") and drop the odd slow number ("Lights Go Down"). Immediate and vibrant, Crazy Itch. is Basement Jaxx at their sassy, life-affirming best. -Paul Sullivan.

S Club 7, a seven-piece collective of teenage boys and girls-Tina, Paul, Hannah, Jon, Bradley, Jo and Rachel-were pre-destined for the dizzy heights of pop stardom with their own personalised PR machine (a show on terrestrial television) and the shrewd management of former Spice Girls manager Simon Fuller. Testimony to this, the band's debut single, the infectiously singalong "Bring It All Back" went straight into the charts at Number One, with the second single "S Club Party" following in hot pursuit. S Club follows a tried and tested pop album formula and features a couple of hum-along cod-Motown numbers ("You're My Number One" and "Everybody Wants Ya"), two bouncy salsa-driven latino songs ("Viva La Fiesta" and "It's A Feel Good Thing"), a caring-sharing social conscience anthem ("Gonna Change the World") and obligatory sloppy love songs "I Really Miss You" and "Two In A Million". Although it's a mediocre offering, it could well end up being a grower. -Ronita Dutta.

Tom Findlay and Andy Cato have steadily been dismantling their chill-out crown ever since the single "At The River" saw them float into coffee-table ubiquity. Lovebox finally stretches the duo's eclectic tastes beyond any semblance of continuity or restraint, finishing the job started on last year's Goodbye Country (Hello Nightclub). Named after Groove Armada's bi-monthly London club night, the duo's fourth album captures the excitement and diversity of pace you would expect from a masterful DJ set. While the opening track "Purple Haze" doesn't have a sniff of Hendrix's majestic histrionics, it is certainly Groove Armada's most rock & roll moment to date. Neneh Cherry lends her sultry voice to the lusty funk-fuelled hip-hop of "Groove Is On" and the urban soul of "Think Twice", and "Remember", with its languorous beat and swirling effects, nods toward their down-beat prime. Feisty dance-floor shakers are here in force though. "Madder", mixing the raps of MC M. A. D. with a pulsating bass and itchy guitar hook, kicks hard, and "The Final Shakedown" is an undiluted house anthem, albeit with a feisty ragga vocal. [+]

Historically speaking, it was at about this point that the Shamen drifted away from their traditional constituency-the rave crowd who'd supported them up to and including the En-Tact album-and began to make serious inroads on the UK and European charts, courtesy of a string of glossy, lightweight singles: "LSI (Love, Sex, Intelligence)", "Ebeneezer Goode" (with its notorious "Eezer good" chorus-perhaps the most crashingly unsubtle drug reference in pop history) and "Phorever People". The difference? Simply the increased prominence of vocalist Mr C. With his plummy, enunciated "raps", his fey, finger-waving dances, and his apparent lack of anything even vaguely resembling a groove, there was a lot of unkind speculation in the music press as to just what that "C" stood for-accompanied by much moaning on the part of the longtime fans-but as the group's sound shifted from techno to euro-pop, its bank balance never looked healthier. -Andrew McGuire.

The Pet Shop Boys' fifth "proper" studio album sees a return to more club-oriented production styles; Very is produced by Neil and Chris themselves (with a little help from Stephen Hague and Brothers In Rhythm) and it shows in the now slightly dated-sounding bleeps and bloops that pepper most every track here. Nevertheless, the songs are as good as always, from the disco stomp of "Can You Forgive Her" to the rollicking "I Wouldn't Normally Do This Kind of Thing", the affecting "The Theatre" and the brilliant but bonkers "Yesterday, When I Was Mad". There are sad, slow songs here, too; the regretful "Young Offender", "To Speak Is A Sin", which details the sordid chat-up processes of certain nightclubs and the poignant "Dreaming Of The Queen", with its strangely prescient lyrics ("And Di replied/That there were no more lovers left alive)". The album's closed by the PSB's anthemic ni-NRG reworking of the Village People's "Go West" and a secret hidden track featuring the vocal talents of one Chris Lowe; another perfect pop package is topped off by a 16-track CD of B-sides, remixes, demos and live tracks, including such gems as the Pets' version of Blur's "Girls And Boys". -Rikki Price.

After a decade as one of the world's most successful dance acts, Faithless's distinct sound has put them at risk of becoming dinosaurs. Thankfully No Roots doesn't rest on the laurels of former glory and delivers something quite special. Sister Bliss's shrill, semi-hard-house synth stabs are all but gone, replaced by less dated sounds and more thoughtful use of them. Tempos are lower and song structure plays a more valuable part, for No Roots is in fact only two gigantic, epic songs, with each track a progression on the previous one and clever segues leading into the next. The only song that doesn't fall into "Parts 1 & 2" is the lead single version of "Mass Destruction" tacked on the end; it's a funky, breaks-based tune with Maxi Jazz's trademark vocal (used sparingly throughout the album) over live bass and guitars. Anyone who's seen Faithless live knows how they can jam around their back catalogue, making medleys and breakdowns of epic proportions: No Roots is a studio realisation of that. Highlighted by "I Want More", downbeat tunes build until their climax when an uptempo number will kick in. "Sweep" is simply a 909 drum and percussion loop with synth flourishes that drops into "Miss You Less, See You More", a classic house tune that closes part one of the album. Something other than a collection of hands-in-the-air floor-fillers and downbeat songs to chillout to, No Roots should be listened to in its entirety. It's a cohesive body of work that builds and dips in all the right places. [+]