The two tracks which premiered on New York: A Mix Odyssey
compose the hard-core of the album. If you've heard "Hear My Name" and
"My My My" then you know what to expect: the same razor-sharp,
pummeling garage beats that van Helden has always specialized in welded
to the absolute finest in rock & roll pyrotechnics. So many
producers have stumbled over the notion of combining rock with dance
that it's almost funny, but van Helden understands almost intuitively
how the two genres can fit together. I'll give you a hint: subtlety
need not apply. Both rock and house are very loud. An effective hybrid doesn't call for compromise; it requires nothing less than full on war.
Appropriately
enough, the album starts with a scream. The title track (one of many to
feature vocals by van Helden himself, under the singularly evocative
pseudonym "Virgin Killer") is, as you might expect, about sex. How
shocking! Mr. Killer struts and scowls like Mick Jagger circa 1975
(only slightly a cartoon character), while the screaming
guitars and jackhammer beats reinforce the notion that this album
intends to take no prisoners. The beat doesn't let up for over an hour.
Did I mention there's some cowbell? Lots of cowbell, actually.
"Come
Play With Me" features Crème Blush waxing sexy over a slinky bassline.
"Sugar" ups the ante on basically the same trick, featuring Jessy Moss
vamping it up over a track that practically slithers out of the
speakers. Spaulding Rockwell proved they could be rapturously defiant
on "Hear My Name", and they show up again on "Jenny", a slightly less
rambunctious number that still manages to appear both menacing and
sensual in equal measures.
"Into
Your Eyes" and "When the Lights Go Down", meanwhile, replicate the feel
of "My My My", using a forgotten rock hook to create an invincible
monster of a tune. Of course, if you have problems with the slightly
repetitious nature of certain kinds of house music, you might not take
to the format so easily. But while house is about repetition,
it's also about modulation and intensity. More than almost any other
producer around, Van Helden is a master at taking what might seem like
a limited format and turning it into something majestic and powerful.
Sex can be repetitive, too, but that doesn't mean it isn't fun.
But Nympho
won't leave you lying alone in bed after having gathered its clothes
and crept away at the first signs of dawn. I could probably complain
about a few things -- such as the fact that "Hear My Name" and "My My
My" appear in truncated form; or that "The Tear Drop", featuring the
odd metaphysical narration of Tim Holton over a repeated bar-band lick,
is an odd note on which to end the album -- but I'd basically be
picking nits. This is a fierce, frighteningly good album that could
easily be the best dance album of the year. It's one of those rare
albums that sounds like nothing so much as a compilation of hit
singles, a parade of irresistible hooks and merciless rhythms. If Nympho fails to conquer the universe, maybe we need a new universe.
