Appliance's fourth album sees a continuation of the more open, direct approach from 2001's 'Imperial Metric'. Where once an Appliance record was a rather robotic, austere listen, the group are now successfully mining a groove-orientated approach with vocals now an essential part of the mix. For the first half of 'Are You Earthed?' the formula works superbly as 'Go Native' and 'As Far As I Can See' possess addictive beats and 'Violins' even boasts a melody, furthermore the icy voice of James Brooks suits the material extremely well. Thereafter a rather unadventurous second half to the album gives the impression that the formula isn't quite perfected yet with too many tracks passing by with barely a modicum of a hook to grab on to. So once again Appliance fall short of delivering the goods but one feels there's a great album in there waiting to happen.