Nympho

Armand van Helden started out as a house DJ back in the early '90s at a Boston club. He created remix gems like Tori Amos' 1996 dance hit 'Professional Widow' and 'You Don’t Know Me' featuring Duane Harden in 1999.

You don't have to be a hardcore house music fan to appreciate the quality of this CD, but it does take about two clicks on the repeat button to get into the groove. 'Nympho' comes hot on the heels of 'New York: A Mix Odyssey' featuring the club favourite 'My My My', which also has been included as track 11 on the 'Nympho' offering.

'Nympho' also sees Van Helden hooking up with a variety of unknown New York artists like Jessy Moss and Spalding Rockwell. The CD fuses his trademark housy beats with rock and dance, guaranteed to get party revellers on the dance floor. And this is exactly what the CD is — a party album filled with off the wall lyrics and killer guitar chords.

Title Track 'Nympho' is a funk-filled song which features Virgin Killer, sounding very much like the old-school rock route that so many of up-and-coming bands like Juliet And The Licks and The Hives are heading in.

'Look Into Your Eyes' has been receiving massive airplay right now. Unfortunately, this track is the most over-produced piece of music on the album. Just listening to it conjures up visions of scantily clad women using heavy machinery, displaying their ability to do manly tasks (like a certain dance video…).

'Jenny' with Spalding Rockwell on vocals has to be the best track on the CD. Its raw lyrics arranged over synthesized beats breaks away from the overtly house-rock theme, and definitely stands out as a dance floor classic.

'The Tear Drop' is exactly what it says. It's a track describing in extensive detail how the "amalgamation of holy headliners all together immersed in a holy embryo, bathing in the holy waters of amniotes surrounded by a holy halo, a cosmic concertina of holy co-operation between minds, bodies and spirits".

But wait, it gets weirder — vocalist Tim Holtom takes more than two minutes to name the teardrop in almost every language known to man. Tiring work, but someone has to do it.

Overall, Nympho is an upbeat album, and if I were a house music fan, it would probably go into my CD collection. But for now, it stays on the "when my friends come over to party" list.