After 10 years of eclectic dance-floor staples, Groove Armada (producers Andy Cato and Tom Findlay) has turned inward for Black Light, an album informed by '80s electro and imbued with middle-aged melancholy. "Shameless," with a guest vocal by Roxy Music's Bryan Ferry, encapsulates Black Light's wistful vibe with a mixture of sleek synths, sinuous guitar and exquisitely dissipated vocals. Ferry's singing floats over the spare, stealthily danceable arrangement like a plume of smoke from a clove cigarette.
Occasionally, a wordless vocal penetrates the mix as if the recording session of The Eurythmics' "Here Comes the Rain Again" were bleeding through the walls. Ferry sums up his present life in a few economical lines: "And the days go on / Morning, noon and night / Permanently wired / to the simple life." But it's all about better days in the end, as Ferry rasps the chorus before the song fades: "And the way we were / faithfully entwined / in a shameless world / rock 'n' roll desire." It may be "September Song" by way of The Breakfast Club, but it's no less moving for its more contemporary atmosphere.
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