Blood Like Lemonade

Rejoice in the welcome return to the Morcheeba fold of singer Skye Edwards, whose reunion with Paul and Ross Godfrey on the band's new album Blood Like Lemonade restores the inimitable laidback charm that made them the mainstay of many a chill-out session. Blood Like Lemonade is the album they've been searching for all these years, one which takes the essence of earlier classics like "Who Can You Trust" and "Big Calm," and transports it to exotic new places. At its heart are the band's trademark oozing downtempo trip-hop grooves, embellished with intriguing, idiosyncratic flourishes like the African thumb-piano of "Even Though," the sitar drone and blues harmonica of "Mandala," and the freak-folk guitar jangle of "I Am the Spring," and topped off with Skye's intimately soulful vocals. It's also at once their most introspective album, with songs which illuminate the band's personal situation, and their most outward-looking, as Paul Godfrey's lyrics pursue characters into uncharted territories: The avenging vampire of "Blood Like Lemonade," the abandoned astronaut of "Even Though," the homicidal dinner-party host of "Recipe for Disaster," the Viking explorers of "Beat of the Drum." It all adds up to the most satisfying album of a career now moving into its fifteenth year, since Morcheeba first sketched out the blueprint for trip-hop.