Mr V - 'Welcome Home'

Hailing from New York's lower east side, and taken under Louie Vega's wing, Mr V AKA Victor Font, has produced a meltdown of R&B, hip hop, rap, latin and house, with a dash of early Snoop Dogg for good measure. All the tracks on 'Welcome Home' last no longer than 2 mins 40, so the album finishes abruptly at just over half an hour. Just when you start to relax into the groove, it ups and moves onto the next track. Title track Welcome Home is laid-back and fairly inoffensive, with a jazz lounge feel which it shares with Bring Your Rhythm and Jus Dance. Green Velvet basslines pepper the LP, providing the infectious rhythm which will hook listeners in. It's Broke and Da Bump lean more towards house and early electro, while the latin flavours are brought out in Put Your Drink Down. Last track V Gets Jazzy adopts Missy Elliot Pass The Dutch-style claps to pin the beats down. "Shake your body/booty" is uttered a few too many times on different songs, and it's a colloquialism that gets tiring. 'Welcome Home' is the smooth soundtrack to a $7-a-cocktail NY bar that doesn't quite hit the spot. [Alex Burden]