(Ministry of Sound/EMI)

Time will tell whether or not electro house can maintain its meteoric rise to the top of the dance music heap, or instead suffers a backlash and gets a swift kick up the arse from the fickle dance music community. Either way, Steve Angello has been one of the scene’s brightest stars. A proud member of the ‘Swedish House Mafia’ along with Axwell, Prydz and Ingrosso, the man has consistently delivered piping-hot production numbers to slavering dance floors around the globe. To give his fans a good idea of what direction his sound is heading in, Angello has teamed up with the Ministry of Sound to take the reigns on the latest installment of the Sessions series.

Whether you’re susceptible to the charms of the 80’s revival or not, it’s hard to deny the Swedish sound has been banging down the nightclub doors. A tight combination of house, electro and tech all tied up in a minimal wrapper, it’s fashioned deliberately to get the floors pumping. It’s this exact sound that’s heard on Angello’s first Sessions CD – jackin’ house beats, lots of quirky acid sounds and massive electro basslines. Not surprisingly, the best inclusions are the production numbers from Angello himself, with several high-impact remixes and his own smashing anthems like Need Some OK.

But the upfront nature of the mix leaves Angello’s first Sessions CD feeling a little short. A disappointingly bland example of a dozen near-identical tracks slotted together, one club stormer after the other means it lacks the proper flow and pacing. And while Angello may be the man of the moment, his style doesn’t necessarily lend itself so well to stereo listening: it’s stripped back, stark and often very repetitive. The big electro basslines may be devastating when booming out over the speakers of a club, but from your iPod headphones it’s another story, and its minimal sound can often lack impact.

But if the first CD is tailored for the dance floors, the second takes it into more twisted territory with a squelchy mashup of dirty electro-tech minimal glitch (defying in the process the amount of adjectives that can be used in a single sentence). From the sleazy minimal grind of Sexy as Fuck to the bump n’ grind electro funk of Let it Drop from DJ Delicious, things only grow tougher and nastier as the mix moves on. Again Angello smashes it out of the park with his own production numbers – the nearly electro-trance Straight and the acid heavy Teasing Mr Charlie standing out from the rest. Maybe less accessible than the house-heavy content of the first CD, but its selections are considerably more diverse and eclectic: it’s not just all about the basslines.

The quality of the tuneage heard on Sessions is certified, particularly Angello’s own productions, but overall the compilation suffers from a touch of blandness. While he’s got the chops as a producer, Angello has a way to go before he’s elevated to the level of the world’s great house DJs. It’s the same story with so many producers turned DJs – great track selection but weak programming. But while he may lack the skills of a seasoned professional, as a producer he’s at the forefront of his sound, and that alone makes his Session CD worth at least a quick listen. For a chunky slab of the latest electro house sound that’s ripping up the clubs at the moment, you can’t go past Angello’s Sessions CD.