La Belle Etoile

Bands with numerous members have a certain attraction, often making you wish you were part of their line-up: The Pogues at their whisky-fuelled best, perhaps, or Dexy's Midnight Runners during their soul phase. To be able to join Lyonnais ten-piece Babylon Circus as they spend another seemingly endless summer on the European festival circuit would be a far from unappealing prospect. Theirs is certainly music made for the months when the sun's highest in the sky.

A fusion of ska, reggae, Gypsy and rock that's liberally flavoured by a hip-hop sensibility, their fourth album, La Belle Etoile, is loaded to the gills with sunshine grooves. Lighter of heart than Manu Chao's punkier Radio Bemba outfit, the band are another fine advertisement for the cross-breeding of musical styles, the blitzing of boundaries. Mongrel and proud, their songs rouse and rejoice, celebrating the vivacity of human existence, however short. ‘Take your chance right when it comes,’ the rapid rapping on ‘L'Envol’ commands, ‘It's a door you can't open twice.’ Clearly consummate showmen, as befits their name there's something of the big top about them, most conspicuously on the spirited cabaret of ‘La Cigarette’ and the wobbly clarinet of ‘Valsamourette’, Their debit column has only a couple of entries: occasionally the band's cod Jamaican patois grates too much, while the sugar-sweet voice of guest vocalist Karina Zeviani should really have been employed more often than her single contribution on ‘Marions-Nous au Soleil’. That said, La Belle Etoile is heartily recommended to anyone for whom the records of Manu Chao have put a skank in their step.