The third edition of the ‘Late Night’ series on Swank Recordings, is compiled and mixed by Groove Junkies. Evan Landes and Parrish Wintersmith present a collection of funky vocal house designed to get you up and shake those hips. These guys capture the West Coast house sound popularised by those such as Andy Caldwell, Miguel Migs and Jay-J. Think lots of vocals, smooth beats and groovy instrumentation.

Starting off with an urban house number from Mr V with ‘Put Your Drink Down’, featuring Luisito Quintero on percussion and producer Louie Vega things look to be off to a good start. We move into a bit more of a traditional house groove with personal favourite, Dennis Ferrer’s ‘Transitions’, more instrumental than his other production GJs have layered Mistura’s ‘Think Positive’ accapella over the top, the result a chugging house number with gospel vocals that don’t really match up with the underlying sound. Before you know it we are head first into funky territory with the extremely camp ‘Free Your Mind’ from TC Moses and CeCe Peniston’s ‘I’m Feelin’ U’ (Ron Carroll mix). The latter is a stunning track but is on the verge of being done to death.

A fair slab of the GJs own production work is on here including thee originals and two remixes, not a bad contribution considering there are only twelve tracks on the whole thing. That aside, their collaboration with Andy Caldwell in ‘I Believe In Dreams’ is excellent, solid sax work and strong diva styles coming from Alexander Sky. The problem with this album is it gets sickly sweet as it heads further and further into handbag territory, Kiko Narro’s track ‘More’, is the perfect example of this. Don’t get me wrong Omega has a great voice but the track is too generic to stand out from the crowd. If you are going to handbag at least go way over the top just as Leela James does in ‘Good Time’, it’s no secret I am a sucker for a great sax line and this track is no exception. The gospel vocals are great also.

Groove Junkies have missed the target on this mix unfortunately. There are some hot tracks on here but they are pulled down by a lot of generic house tracks that don’t do enough to grab the listener. The variety of music is also poor with many sounding a little too similar for my liking. If you are just getting into house or like commercial house then this may be just the CD for you, but if you a little more refined in your tastes this will leave you a little wanting. In a word… soft.