X-Press 2 - The House Of X-Press 2

X-Press 2 are one of the true survivors of UK dance music. Over the course of a 25 year career the group, now reduced to the duo of DJ Diesel (Darren House) and DJ Rocky (Darren Rock) following the departure of Ashley Beedle in 2009, have been flying the flag for dance music, and particularly house music, in its purest form. Despite their long career the group’s discography is slim, however, and ’The House Of X-Press 2” is only their third studio album - their first since 2006.

X-Press 2 may be relatively unknown beyond the dance community, apart from 2002’s hit single ‘Lazy’ featuring the vocal talents of David Byrne, but there is no doubting their influence and importance to UK dance music. ‘The House Of X-Press 2’ is an album that celebrates the joy of the dance floor and the pace rarely lets up throughout its eleven tracks.

House music is the duo’s real love and their passion for this sound and its ability to excite, inspire and, most importantly, make people dance is evident throughout. Opening track ‘This Is War’ immediately introduces the deep house vibe and its pulsing groove complements the strident vocals of Doll from Doll & The Kicks, the first of a number of guest vocalists on the record. Legendary house vocalist Roland Clark appears twice and former singer with The Music, Rob Harvey features on the broodingly menacing ‘The Blast’. By far the best vocal guest spot however, is James Yuill’s endearingly funky performance on the upbeat melodic dance pop of ‘Time’.

Musically the album is certainly coherent and sounds excellent throughout, helped by guest production from esteemed house producers Timo Garcia, Tim Deluxe and Analog People In A Digital World. The album does betray its influences a bit too much however, and the dominant acid house vibe does become a little bit wearing with too many of the tracks descending into aimless filler, a groove in search of a good melody.

There’s certainly no doubting X-Press 2’s production skills and they definitely still know how to make a dance floor-filling anthem, but you do wish that they had used those production skills and knowledge to make an album that is a bit less reductive and a bit more forward thinking. Anyone with fond memories of acid house and a love of well-crafted dance music will still find much to enjoy here.