Masterful Production

Fatboy Slim's newest album, Palookaville, came out a week ago today, and I've been listening to it a couple times a day since Thursday. It is a truly impressive piece of music, an equal to its critically acclaimed predecessor Halfway Between the Gutter and the Stars. The album has a lighter feel, as if Norman Cook (a.k.a. Fatboy Slim) was imagining a party on a secluded beach instead of one in a jam-packed dance club. Palookaville takes another step away from Slim's first two more purely techo/remix albums Better Living Through Chemistry and You've Come Along Way, Baby. As it turns out, the general absence of big beat grooves like "The Rockefeller Skank" or "Ya Mama" isn't at all problematic. The first single, "Slash Dot Dash," fills this position somewhat, but the other 11 tracks support themselves just fine with catchy lyrics and a variety of talented vocalists. With Palookaville Cook has shown he his a multi-faceted artist, and I can only hope that his next album is not another four years away.