For years, Love Spirals Downwards have been the mascot leaders of Chicago- based Projekt records. Epitomizing the label with their lush, casually paced guitars and siren vocals, Love Spirals Downwards have created their own little niche in the ambient gothic world.

The latest album from the band, Flux, is more of the same stuff we've come to expect from the California- based duo with one key exception-- over all of the hypnotic aural dreamscapes that have made up Love Spirals Downwards is the introduction of jungle beats. Very weird, and something that makes you instinctively pop the disc out and make sure you put the right album in. But it's true.

The combination of gothic trance and jungle rhythms isn't something that you'd probably expect to be found on the Projekt label, or any other gothic or dark ambient label that's trying to take itself seriously. However, within minutes of listening to this disc, you'll think that Love Spirals Downwards has been doing it for years and everybody else is just way behind the times.

Much less like a prelude to a dance remix, and more like an integral part of the music, electronic drums are used here in a tempo that's plenty fast, but subdued enough to not be the foreground of the songs. Rather, the foreground remains the interaction between effect- heavy guitar and singer Suzanne Perry's other- worldly vocals. Songs stand out as clearly futuristic, perhaps paving the way for a new interaction of genres that hadn't previously been conceived. Slacking back and listening to "Sound of Waves" or "Ring" easily lets you believe you've been somehow privy to a CD warped back in time from ten years in the future. We'll be anxiously awaiting the next album.

-Skaht Hansen