David Holmes

This album closes the trilogy of dark, sorted, beat-heavy rock started by Death In Vegas a year ago and continued by Primal Scream at the beginning of this year. Bow Down To The Exit Sign joins The Contino Sessions and Xtrmntr by praising the revolutionary musical movements started by the likes of MC5, Miles Davis, Sly Stone, James Brown, Can and the Stooges. David Holmes, Ireland's most successful DJ and colleague of Primal Scream and DIV, has put together his masterpiece with his third album. He was heavily inspired by NYC (as he was on 1997's Let's Get Killed), where he wrote and recorded most of the album. Yet unlike his techno-driven debut, This Film's Crap, Let's Slash The Seats, and his bouncy yet psychotically sample-driven sophomore effort, Let's Get Killed, this disc is truly satisfying. Written alongside a film script, the album decoratively takes on dark personas of NYC, told through the guest voices of Jon Spencer (Blues Explosion), Bobby Gillespie (Primal Scream) and Martina Topley-Bird (Tricky). However, it is the use of black poet Carl Hancock Rux that sets the record straight. "Compared To What" and "Living Room" show Rux's gift for the gab as he preaches over top of funky rhythms and wah wah guitar licks. The musicianship behind this album is not completely original (which Holmes would admit), but it is the effort put into the record that makes it so stunning. This is the soundtrack to New York City.