Infected Mushroom Converting Vegetarians BNE / Yo-Yo (Israel)

I was trying to make the case over the last few weeks, with anyone who’d listen, that the fourth album is a tricky one. Led Zeppelin, f’rinstance, ditched their old sound and managed to find Stairway to Heaven. Oasis on the other hand lost it completely and disappeared up their own backsides. The Aphex Twin, nobody really noticed much difference; and Kylie doesn’t count. The fact that we’ve got to scrabble around for bands – not acts, or producers, as this album firmly plants infected as a band – that  have lasted four albums is testament to Infected having got this far. And it’s kind of a no-win situation; deviate too far from their previous output and the world cries “they’ve lost it”; stay the same and the world cries “boorriing.” Converting Vegetarians will provide enough fodder for both these camps. It’s different, and at the same time it’s not that different. Albibeno has shades of their earlier style, albeit more stripped-down, Chaplin gets wobbly and Yanko Pitch’s melodic rushes are going to have even the most hardened Gathering-fan nodding along smilingly. What’s mostly evident from the trance CD is that the tunes definitely don’t smash you around the room in the way that older Infected stuff does. But then Led Zep 4 doesn’t smash you around the room like Led Zep 1 either. Point being (if there is a point) is that Infected have latched on to a new maturity; brushing aside the occasionally dodgy vocals, there’s a real sense that they’ve taken the hot rod apart, and reassembled it without the fuzzy dice, twin exhaust, and zebra print seat covers. We’re talking a more refined, adult Infected here. Or so I thought until “The Other Side,” a CD of ‘freestyle’ music that, although providing a nice distraction and contrast from their trancier numbers, is rather baffling. Whether it’s a trance-opera in the making (I wouldn’t put it past them to do some sort of Rocky Horror thing), whether it’s the funniest Shpongle pisstake in the world, or whether it’s a deadly serious excursion into deep trance syncopations (maybe), you have to give them credit for doing what they want to. And creating a largely loveable, lasting album along the way.