Death In Vegas Scorpio Rising

• Words: Dave Segal
• Label: Concrete
• XLR8R Rating: /10

Beginning with their second album, 1999's The Contino Sessions, Death In Vegas have been more psychedelic rockers than dance-music producers. Scorpio Rising, Richard Fearless and Tim Holmes' lighter, more hopeful follow-up to that morbidly dark work, continues their trip into mind-altering rock. Similar to David Holmes and Massive Attack, DIV act as conceptualists for a large, rotating cast of star singers (Liam Gallagher and Paul Weller, among others) and session players. Aided by legendary violinist L. Subramaniam, spectral guitar effects and liberal usage of sitar, the disc takes on an ethereal, uplifting glow, most powerfully on the Hope Sandoval-sung bliss-rock epic "Help Yourself."