ichard Fearless is an interesting artist. A true visionary, the man has continued to fuse dance music, the hippest in pop culture and his own sense of dark art into a fascinating musical collage. Along with his studio cohort, Tim Holmes, Fearless has forged Death In Vegas into an evolving, taste-making, music machine.

1997’s Dead Elvis found the two up against dance heavyweights like The Chemical Brothers, Underworld and The Prodigy, yet still managing to stick out like a sore thumb, lacing their big beats with ska and raga flavoured vocals and the darkest air in the scene. It wasn’t a spectacular album, but it got them cred and a name. The follow-up, The Contino Sessions, would have been the most heavenly kaleidoscopic album of ’99, if it hadn’t been for The Flaming Lips. It did, however, set the stages for a deep, electro, punk-funk scene that would feature other craftsmen like Primal Scream and David Holmes with their following records. Contino took their love for psych freak-outs, white noise and hypnotic ambience, and exploited it with fabulous collaborations with Jim Reid (The Jesus & Mary Chain), Bobby Gillespie (Primal Scream) and Dot Allison. Dark and hedonistic, the album sounded like the aural equivalent of hell.

Scorpio Rising (named after Kenneth Anger’s classic film about gay Nazi bikers) is an even bigger step into the warped world of Fearless and Holmes. Like their mates Primal Scream, DIV are constantly reinventing their sound, aiming for something even more explosive and diverse than the last. Again, there are a number of collaborations, and again, they prove to be fundamental for the DIV formula of making music.

Like its introspective album cover, Scorpio Rising is a rainbow of musical colors. It’s not a real consistent journey, because of the eclectic styles, but the masterful sequencing makes it flow smoothly from track to track.

Starting things off is “Leather”, a Neu!-ish motorik beat setting off a Stooges explosion, only to be blissfully cut off by the BBC flavored ambience of “Girls”. Again, things are interrupted in a flash, with the domineering vocals of Adult.’s Nicola Kuperus on the thick, slice of electro that is “Hands Around My Throat”. Scorpio Rising is one rollercoaster rise that doesn’t end until the album halts to a complete stop. But before that happens, Paul Weller mans the front for a Ming Tea flavored rockathon on a cover of Gene Clark’s classic, “So You Say You Lost Your Baby”. Dot Allison returns to the DIV fold on a My Bloody Valentine inspired, minimal piece of drone. Yet, most impressive of all, is how DIV have breathed new life into Liam Gallagher. Singing the album’s title track, it’s his best work since Morning Glory, and shows he can give his brother a run for the money in collaborating with DJs. Notable as well, is the vocals of the dreamy siren, Hope Sandoval (Mazzy Star). Her two contributions, the banjo-led countrified “Killing Smile” and the epic closer “Help Yourself”, a nod to all of those great Chemical Brothers album closers, makes her voice sound more distinguished than ever.