Original Soundtrack - Human Traffic (CD)

All Music Guide

Two discs and it's almost respectively hit or miss. In the soundtrack to a well-versed and refreshing film, Pete Tong supervises a mix of club staples, hip-hop excursions, and interstitial soundbites. While such a populist mind behind the whole affair does no favors for such a wildly eclectic dance culture, the compilation still works with such a fervent grasp of the unabashed energy and sincere love attached to the world of dance music that it succeeds surprisingly well. Even so, the first disc is where most of the flaws exist. There are lots of stop-start pacing through various dance styles (i.e., Public Enemy right against Death in Vegas) and a strict refusal to follow any sort of film continuity, so that by the time the disc reaches its "comedown" section (with songs such as Orbital's gorgeous "Belfast"), nothing really connects with any meaningful effect. Then the second disc solves most problems. Instead of being a rather clumsily cobbled-together collection of songs from the fil...m, it takes the mix-album approach and builds and flickers and shimmies along like all the good ones should. It has a bad start with Armand Van Helden's "Flowerz," but picks up steam going from "Push It" to the old favorite "Age of Love" to the suitably popular "Out of the Blue." There's a tiny bit of garage influences, a lot of trance, and then to a thundering climax of Underworld, "Dark Air," and "The Tingler." Finally, to put a nice ellipsis at the end of the disc, this all fades out to the beautiful chimes of a remix to Primal Scream's "Come Together." It's an invigorating, moving denouement to a well-executed and frenetic mix showing off just why the film and the dance culture it represents are nothing to ignore. So yes, if the first disc might be off a bit, the second disc alone is worth twice the price of admission. Indeed: grab the album, rearrange the first disc's tracks to the order you like, blast the second disc, and you might end up with one of the more enjoyable, risk-free dance music collections of recent memory. - Dean Carlson, All Music Guide Read more Less