Stereo Nation returns with a new album, hoping to emulate the success they had with the last album with there own unique blend of pop music. They brought the electronically altered voice back to forefront a "technique" which has been used widely ever since 'Pyar Ho Gaya.'

The album kicks off with Ishq. This is the undoubtedly the best track and therefore rightly so, the most popular. Again, throughout the sung portion of the song the music is kept simple and is not overwhelming (I'm sure there's a bit of 'Billy Jean' in there but then again that won't be the first time that its been used) there's a lot of repetition in the lyrics which makes it easy to pick up and a song which people remember is the ideal thing if you want your song to be popular. The video is really good as well, in fact one of the best bhangra videos ever produced! Wonder who paid for it all? Well, that would be being nosey but if you ask me it won't have been Moviebox (the record label).

Sikadeh Humeh Pyar is next. This is a bit too Bollywood for my liking with its wild and flamboyant music, duet singing (not that there's anything wrong with that) and long breaks between vocals.

Then we get the tune 'Aja Gideh Vich.' This is a pretty good song, but the lyrics and been used many times before as part of songs. As well as that I would say that in this version all the positive aspects of the original are overshadowed by the out of place and poor breaks of English vocals. Overall, it's not too bad though.

Na Janeh Kya Hoowah is numero quatre. It's an average song, which has got a typical feel to it. It lacks the certain edge of originality and quality (as do quite a few of the tunes in this album), which separates an average song from a great one. Another bad point about the song is that it is very repetitive.

Peeni Peeni Shraab is next for you. I'm not the type to be fair and insult your intelligence and say a tune was average when, in fact, it was crap. So I'll get off the metaphorical fence and blatantly say this is sh**. It's just yet another, which just feels like the format has been copied, and you've heard it many times before.

Moving onto 'Oh Saathi.' Another below par effort, the music is too overpowering for the lyrics, which would suit a much slower song. There are just too many styles that are trying to be merged together, which detracts from the feel of the song.

Dilruba is track number seven. This is more of the Stereo Nation that we are used to. It's a nice mix as it has an upbeat track with a simple but extremely effective beat. It's really good they way the pace is slowed down, then all of a sudden the song speed up again. There has been some nice work done on this one, well done.

This is followed by 'Love and Devotion.' Yes, that is the song name! This is very cheesy contribution to world peace and harmony, credit for the idea but nice ideas don't usually sell records and upon critical analysis of the song it doesn't meet the necessary requirements despite the music having a nice pop feel to it.

Dekho is the next song, it is a slow track with a subtle Latin feel to it (a theme which runs strong throughout the album) the slow singing isn't even in time with the music with the exception of the chorus. This sort of karaoke singing would even eliminate depth from a song with excellent lyrics, but this doesn't have them anyway so it shows how poor it is.

Moving swiftly onto the next mix. All I can say about this is what the f**k? How sh** is this? The lyrics, which barely match the speed of the music, are clichéd and very annoying.

Finally you get Aja Gideh Vich (Desi Version), which is just for all of you that have the album on CD (it's what Moviebox call the CD Bonus, so if you bought the tape you got to buy the CD as well if you want this track, nice idea what do you think?). It's a decent song with good music and nice lyrics; however, the track doesn't have the impact it should have for an upbeat song such as this.

Overall the album doesn't even come close to the impact the last album had. That album namely 'Slave II Fusion' had much better 'hit' tunes and the rest were much better than just listen able. With tracks like Pyar Ho Gaya, Nachangeh Saari Raat & Galan Goriyan still fresh in the memory, this album is very much a let down with only a couple of tunes giving us the glimpse of the old album. Maybe it was just the uniqueness of there style which drew people to them, maybe now people have moved on, no-one can say for sure, as determining the wants of a mass audience is very difficult, my personal opinion is the album is based to heavily on the Indian market to whom this style of pop is new and fresh, but to us, we've seen it all before. Slave II Fusion, which was without doubt one of the best albums of 2001 was a tough act to follow and they have not done it too well it would seem, as I would give this album an average 6 out of 10. So maybe he needs to change the style of music for his next album release? Having said this no one can take anything away from Taz's voice, as his singing is just amazing and I'm sure he will be back with his next release.