For his first release proper on the Punk Funk label (I know, it is rather a cringeworthy thing to call a label, isn’t it?), drummer and in-session handyman Stylus Rex stops the skin-bothering for a bit and takes to the helm of house producer extraordinaire. And fair enough, as a stab at perking up your endorphins ‘Blatant’ fares pretty well, having as it does a synthesised hook bold enough to hang your cagoule collection on and a breakbeat that could make it a staple across the nation’s sticky dancefloors. Even though, for a track that deals more in rhythm than in stealth, it could easily have a couple of minutes shaved off of it somewhere.

Admittedly there is the nagging feeling that there are tech-heads out there doing this sort of warping, liquid beats & breaks to a much better standard (Evil Nine being the first to pop into your correspondent’s frazzled state of consciousness), and that if Orbital were still here they’d probably find it so smooth (read: tame) they’d start polishing their headlamps with it. It’s hardly indicative of how inventive and all-encompassing the current dance scene is either, as this is the sort of house-esque floor-shudderer that could have been dreamt up by any bedroom wizard over the past decade or so. But of course ultimately this isn’t an advert for how fertile ‘clubland’ is at all, rather the sort of heavy-handed tune that swallows a groove and swills it about, all whilst watching you dance along. And, unless you’re the sort of dullard who assumes the beat went off somewhere around the last Fatboy Slim album, than dance you shall.