IM The Supervisor

Theory time: Infected Mushroom have disowned psytrance. The cheeky title of 2003s Converting Vegetarians suggested as much: two fingers up to the hippy sensibilities permeating the scene, and a freestyle CD that send up Shpongle et al with the finest, banjo-based comedy trance yet released. IM The Supervisor is confusing. Whether you see them as turning into a psytrance version of The Darkness, or whether you believe they‘re pushing the envelope even further, this is the furthest cry possible from the ‘Infuckted Messroom’ sound of their first two albums. For one, they seem to have elevated to fetish their particular ‘depeche mode thru a megaphone’ vocals, which may work on some dancefloors but which leave many others cringing. On the occasions where everything falls into glorious place — occasions which are too few and far between — they can still make a track work: their trademark arpeggios are devastatingly effective, and shifted time signatures show they still know how to move a dancefloor, and their peaks — while often resembling more hard house than anything else — are huge, rocking examples of effective dance music by numbers. While this is an interesting album, it’s in no way essential in the way that The Gathering or Classical Mushroom were. Of course, we may be in the presence of genius that will only be fathomed years in the future, by which time psyreviews will have revised its opinion as it puts the finishing touches to the Rolling Stone ‘special 50th anniversary’ issue; but on the evidence of this, it’s somewhat unlikely.