(Roadrunner/Shock)

At what point does a musical crossover sell itself short by slumping into mediocrity? It’s a fine line, but Junkie XL, AKA Tom Holkenborg, is one such musical prodigy who manages to straddle both the club and the mainstream with huge success.

Producing high-impact dance music since the mid-90s, but really grabbing the world’s attention with his Elvis remix in 2002, Holkenborg is among the truly elite clique of electronic musicians, along with BT, who possess the smarts to blend the melody and structures of pop and rock with a sophisticated dancefloor aesthetic. Stepping back from the sprawling conceptual approach of his victorious Broadcast from the Computer Hell Cabin, Junkie XL takes what he terms a “back-to-basics” approach with his new album Today.  

Getting past the initial shock of the front-cover artwork, a demure black-and-white desert photo featuring a denim-clad Holkenborg looking like a reject from a Creed video, first impressions are going to be less than overwhelming for fans. He’s going for a high-tech New Order vibe, evoking the emotive clang and jangle of The Edge’s guitar, the sweet croon of Coldplay’s Chris Martin and the demure basslines of The Cure. While he occasionally nails it, overall the album lacks the desired impact.

The biggest mistake Holkenborg makes is that instead of Computer Hell Cabin’s stellar range of guest vocalists, he strokes his ego by singing his own somewhat embarrassing lyrics on more than half of the songs. He’s a cutting-edge producer but not a pop star: when he shoots for atmospherics he scores, but when he goes for the choruses he’s little more than an alt-rock wannabe. It’s on the instrumental tracks that he nails the soaring emotion he’s going for: Mushroom and Such a Tease are uplifting slices of guitar-laden breakbeat, with soft guitar stabs lifted straight out of a U2 or Coldplay track. But when he pulls up the microphone to belt out a tune, he’s only conveying a half-baked collection of musical ideas that aren’t going anywhere fast. 

It’s all just so damn bland. He kicks it off with the self-indulgent 10-minute epic Youthful, sounding like a boring Pink Floyd offcut left on the studio floor, while the first single and title track Today is little more than pedestrian guitar rock – weak lyrics with an underwhelming chorus. The album descends into what’s mostly a collection of dreary ballads, and the emotive Drift Away is the only track where he really gets the balance right. Hearing the half-baked collection of electronic rock on offer here simply makes you want to go dig out a copy of his smashing Infusion-collaboration Aquaman, and it falls well short of the bliss of his rock/club fusions like Breezer.   

Junkie XL’s new album may sound inviting to those searching for electronic music that stays clear of dancefloor glitch, but in shooting for pop/rock immediacy he comes up against the same wall that BT did with his forgettable Emotional Technology album – the edginess is traded for a cheesy grab at accessibility that just doesn’t pay off. To succeed with such a fusion you need to push the boundaries a little, but unfortunately he comes off as a poor imitation of the alt-rock heroes he’s trying to emulate. The blandness of the material means it’s easy to overlook how typically accomplished the production work is, and it’s an irony that his earlier and edgier work got him more airplay than this often stale effort ever will. Disappointing.