Groove Armada

Black Light Groove Armada

Not many bands' sixth albums could be described as bold, brave, fresh, adventurous or representing a new creative peak. But Groove Armada's brilliant Black Light is all of those things and more. Twelve years into a career as purveyors of top drawer dance music, Andy Cato and Tom Findlay have completely reinvented their sound, with thrilling results. Thus, in a break with GA tradition, their band was brought into the studio early in the making of the Black Light, helping to bring authenticity to their new song-based sound. Andy and Tom also began their tortuous quest to find the guest vocalists who would eventually work with them on the album, scouring their music collections. The very first song they made for the album was Warsaw, a dark, juddering, electro-rock monster that's one of several Black Light tracks to feature vocals from Empire of the Sun's Nick Littlemore. As well as Warsaw, Littlemore's vocals drive the delicate, ethereal Fall Silent; the brooding, menacing Not Forgotten; and the emotion-heavy, 80s-tinged pop polemic that is Cards To Your Heart. SaintSaviour, the livewire front woman of electro-popsters RGBs has lent her crystalline vocals to the album's first single, the gorgeous, regret-tinged I Won't Kneel, as well the the defiant, punk-funk duet Paper Romance, on which she shares vocals with Ben from fast-rising dance-poppers Fenech Soler. St Saviour also appears on the deliciously driving, electro-skank Time and Space alongside Jess Larabee from underground Brooklyn rockers She Keeps Bees, a band GA discovered on MySpace. The yearning voice you'll hear on the stirring house lullaby History belongs to pop superstar Will Young, a friend of Andy's since they bonded on nights out in Ibiza. And, having had Roxy Music's Love Is A Drug on repeat for much of the recording session, it seemed only right to get the legendary Bryan Ferry to supply his first ever guest vocal to the softly intense Shameless. "That track is totall