4 out of 5

Produced by: Soulwax

Label: PIAS

Let’s start with the stuff you already know: Soulwax “returned” after a long hiatus with this soundtrack to Belgica, a flick about nightclub life for which the Dewaele brothers constructed fake bands with fake backgrounds from different genres of the clubby music scene (with great names like The Shitz and Burning Phlegm), and adopted those personas per track.  So, hey, it’s a compilation, and its all Soulwax.

Of course, I put returned in quotes above because despite a dearth of actual album releases, the boys have been incredibly busy with their Deewee label, radio work, and remixing, and bearing that in mind – and how adaptable its made their style – despite the hefty faux info for Belgica, it is absolutely a Soulwax disc.  Some tracks might lean more on 80s pop (opener The Best Thing) or punk (Nothing, by the aforementioned Burning Phlegm), or faux-foreign synth (Çölde Kutup Ayisi by ‘Kursat 9000’), but the heart and, ahem, soul of Wax’s quality sense of rhythm overrides all; the whole album is damnedly infectious.

True, the artifice of the project takes a toll: you can’t quite take much of this seriously.  I wouldn’t say Soulwax was ever a particularly emotional group – forever more about the groove, even back in their rock days – but there’s a level of disconnect on Belgica that prevents it from really being a home run, despite every track sincerely being quality stuff that merits gotta-hear-this-song-again moments.  And one could wish for maybe a better “story” with the sequencing, as it seemingly purposefully juxtaposes genres to keep the listen lively, but it really just makes it sound like a list of singles.  Something that seemed a bit more linear – progressing through styles – might’ve been more effective.

 Note that Soulwax dropped a legit album soon after this, so maybe the pretend act was a great way to shake off the cobwebs.  Either way, it resulted in a solid addition to their library.  Whether filed under their name or The Shitz.