Handcream For A Generation

Having covered so much territory, the album leaves you completely fulfilled--like any nightclub act--but ready to do it all over again the next night.

Sounds even more like Quentin Tarantino directing a Bollywood Superfly starring Beck. [3 May 2002, p.88]

Handcream is so fresh, so unexpected and so buoyant in its delivery of peaceful revolutionary politics that it should be the party album of the summer. [#34, p.59]

This is happy music for hard times, a ray of warm and righteous sunshine just when it was needed most.

Cornershop have clearly been biding their time, not squandering it, returning with the kind of meaty, substantial, truly multi-dimensional project they've long been working towards.

Difficult and easy, dance-y and indie, this is a transitional album that works on just about every level I can think of.

While there's no doubting Tjinder's undeniably good taste, the sheer profusion of ideas on offer is probably Cornershop's biggest shortcoming.

A foot-stomping, bum-shaking good time from beginning to end. [May 2002, p.80]

This is blender pop of the finest order, held together by some of the most high-minded funk in this galaxy.

It's party music with an edge, and celebratory songs for underdogs.... A spirited, unpredictable good time.

As with Daft Punk's Discovery and Playgrou's eponymous 2001 debut LP, Handcream For A Generation puts fun back on the agenda, offering a blurry picture of marathon socialising and the frazzled warmth of the morning after the night before. [Album of the Month, May 2002, p.88]

Manages to provide a more coherent and enjoyable listening experience than mainstream dance bods like Daft Punk and Basement Jaxx have delivered of late. [Album of the Month, April 2002, p.94]

This all flows well and is quite a good piece of mood music, yet there's no hiding that for all their political stances and past reputation, Cornershop doesn't really have all that much to say this time around, nor have they delivered more than a handful of songs to have all this stick.

An exhilarating but disorienting ride.

Handcream is leaner and less exuberant than When I Was Born, lower on warm drone and Indian elements generally and higher on Singh's sardonic mode.

The band's strong suit--which, when it gets down to business, has gotten noticeably stronger (and tighter and more focused) over the course of four releases--are earthy dance tracks like "Music Plus 1" and "Wog.com" which take hypnotic bass and drum tracks and embellish them with a variety of samples, noises, etc., and Tjinder Singh's simple, effective vocals.

Handcream for a Generation is a festive crash of cultures, a Babel of loops and ethnic body language. Dixie R&B, Bollywood kitsch, Crooklyn hip-hop, Eurotrash electronics -- singer-songwriter and producer Tjinder Singh shakes 'em up like rats in a box, finding kicks and connections in aggressive pastiche.

The set works like a spun-up set of carefully collated cuts, sequenced with stuck-tape-over-the-tabs-in-the-corners mix-tape affection that makes the whole seem like a sticky-sentimented sentimental love letter to the boys' record collections.

Unlike When I Was Born, which made similar pileups sound subversive, Handcream often feels mapless. [May 2002, p.122]

It sounds like the band is trying too hard to recapture the quirk factor, and the overdose borders on annoying.

Weakened by a slew of club-oriented pieces that drown its personality in repetitive grooves. [Apr/May 2002, p.113]