OFF THE RECORDS/NEW GOLD DREAMS - Tyson, the new Sylvester...his "Die on the Dancefloor" is the best dance '80s album of the Year

In 2011, after a lukewarm attempt at a solo career, London's Ali Love somehow became the male vocalist in house circles: he was versatile enough to feature on top of the spewed electro of Justice's Civilization or the chilled nu-Balearica of Luca C & Brigante's "Different Morals," and he featured, most prominently, on that unescapable half-disco, half-house gem by Hot Natured ("Forward Motion"). If there is one thing you could reproach, however, it's Love's singing, its overall self-restraint, its under-the-top-ness.

Enter Tyson, another Londoner with the same knack for Italo-tinged pop, who works with the same label (Back Yard Recordings), and the same studio collaborator (Martin Dubka, of indie-dance hopefuls Cazals), but with a totally different approach to self-characterization. On the basis of his Die on the Dancefloor long-player, it wouldn't be surprising to see this young newcomer ubiquitously occupy in 2012 the same ground Love did last year. Except Tyson is, at heart, a more theatrical vocalist in the diva house tradition. (Think Robert Owens meets Billie Ray Martin meets Chelonis R. Jones meets Hard Ton.) The campy attitude he displays on the ten tracks on offer might be too much of an acquired taste, but there is also a commanding posture at work here that makes his music definitely stand out.

Aesthetically speaking, Die on the Dancefloor is pretty much in synch with what you'd expect post-disco resurgence dance pop to be like. "Fight," for instance, constitutes a rather enjoyable go at the kind of commercially sound, mainstream recordings Giorgio Moroder perfected during his Flashdance soundtrack phase, although it is hard to tell if the overwrought guitar solo that severs the song in two is tongue-in-cheek or just tootongue-in-cheek for its own good. The same could be said about songs like "Love's on the Line" or "Ran for Love," which both recall Tina Turner's reign in sci-fi classicMad Max. Album closer "On the Radio" constitutes the mandatory—and disposable, to be frank—unhurried track: not slow enough to be fully epic, yet not danceable enough either, it mostly serves to draw attention to the fact Tyson has undeniable magnetism on one hand, but that he also relies on the strength of the background compositions at all times. That said, you can't help but hope that Die on the Dancefloor will be Tyson's entry ticket on the house scene next to other novices like EJ, Little Jinder or even Amirali, and his authoritative vocal presence won't make electronic music producers shy away from one of the most interesting characters to emerge from the UK these past months.