Blank & Jones - Singles (W/Dvd) (Dig) (Ipod) (CD)

All Music Guide

German duo Blank and Jones make the kind of dance music that never seems to get any critical respect widely popular, very straightforward, guaranteed to soundtrack anything anywhere with the word ‘trance' in it and not namedropped by hip DJs in general as a result. Which is an incredible pity, because as The Singles demonstrates, the duo clearly aren't out to push back frontiers but to just to make people dance and have a good time and more to the point, doing so with a heavy undercurrent of the kind of classic dark disco and protoindustrial beats they clearly grew up on. As such they slot much more into the realm of acts like Apoptgyma Berzerk and Black Strobe more than might be guessed, and the gloss of Europop that slips and slides among their songs always seems to get spiked with the kind of pop/trance that first caught the ear of Wax Trax fanatics years ago precisely because it was derived from similar roots. The Singles careens from one instant fix to another, starting with the...ir inspired reworking of the Cure's "A Forest," with Robert Smith contributing the vocals; other guest appearances that make clear where Blank and Jones see their lineage include Anne Clark on "The Hardest Heart" and, in a truly leftfield move, the Church's Steve Kilbey on the extreme moodout "Revealed." (In contrast having Propaganda's legendary singer Claudia Brucken on "Unknown Treasure" is a more readily understandable nod to the past.) If some of the singles are more a pleasant collage of familiar elements and if the tracklisting is best heard in bursts rather than all the way through there's enough hotwiring and instant poprushes going on to make The Singles worth listening to. The liner notes for each track from the band are brief but have interesting trivia at points, while the accompanying DVD provides videos for many but not all the songs seeing the two dressed up as Simon le Bon and Adam Ant on "DJs, Fans and Freaks" will make the head spin. - Ned Raggett, All Music Guide Read more Less