BOYS NOIZE plays Sound Academy on Friday (December 7). See listing. Rating: NNN
Oi Oi Oi, the 2007 debut album by German DJ/producer Boys Noize (aka Alexander Ridha), summed up the club sounds of that year perfectly. Unfortunately, that heavy-metal-disco thing still comes across like 2007, and five years ago is never a good sound in dance music. To be fair, when an artist is as popular as Ridha, his fan base isn’t too receptive to drastic reinvention, and as long as the gigs keep coming he doesn’t have much motivation to move forward. If it isn’t broke….
If chainsaw bass lines and crunchy drum loops still turn your crank, Out Of The Black does have enough genuine bangers to keep your fist pumping. The use of vocoder gets old quickly, but at least the Snoop Dogg guest appearance works better than it should. And when Ridha drops some acid house references on the Chilly Gonzales-assisted Merlin, he proves he still has the ability to surprise. Most of the tracks sound pretty familiar, though, with just enough new tricks to avoid feeling like a complete rerun.
Top track: Merlin