Note that this is a review of the pre-release of this album. Apparently some samples in Slash Dot Slash had to be rerecorded for legal reasons but I'm assuming there are no other major changes.

Considering the direction Norman Cook has been taking over the course of his albums, Palookaville isn't very surprising at all. Fatboy Slim continues to move further away from his harsh signature bigbeat sound that dominated You've Come a Long Way Baby and further towards the mainstream as in Halfway Between the Stars and the Gutter. Depending on your point of view, this is either a good thing or a bad thing.

Scattered through the album is a few fun bangers like Slash Dot Slash and Jingo, with Jingo sounding a lot like Everyone Loves A Carnival 2004 styles. It seems sometimes that Fatboy Slim is purposly avoiding using a lot of his standard studio tricks, and even when he does indulge he manages to put new spins on them. Most of the artist colaborations are pretty miserable and boring, with the exceptions of Wonderful Night and The Journey, both with Lateef. The much hyped remix of The Joker is complete garbage and reeks of an attempt to cash in on the trend of remixes of older songs a la Elvis.

Overall, the album has it's up and downs but in the end features several strong and enjoyable tracks including a few tracks that will definately find their way to the dancefloor with a decent remix or two. Fatboy does his best work when he's not confining himself to heavy sampling of existing tracks and artist colaborations.

Tracks:

01. Don't Let The Man
02. Slash Dot Slash
03. Wonderful Night (feat Lateef)
04. Long Way From Home (feat Johnny Quality)
05. Put It Back Together (feat Damon Albarn)
06. El Bebe Masoquista
07. Push And Shove (feat Justin Robertson)
08. North West Three
09. The Journey (feat Lateef)
10. Jingo
11. Song For Chesh
12. The Joker (feat Bootsy Collins)