The Contino Sessions takes the dance aesthetic of the Chemical Brothers and applies it to rock and roll. It’s mostly instrumental; lots of guitars and synth repeating simple rhythms that build up to a full and layered sound. First track ‘Dirge’ is the perfect example of this: there’s a "la la la" vocal at the start but as the guitars, keyboards, drums and effects slowly overpower it, it drowns in a wash of fuzz. The title’s apt. The overall effect, and this is true of the whole of The Contino Sessions, is so dirty and urban you can almost hear dogs barking and sirens wailing in the background.

‘Soul Auctioneer’ is one of four tracks out of nine with guest vocals, this time by Primal Scream’s Bobby Gillespie. The death-obsessed lyrics match the mood of the music perfectly; it’s a song full of revolution, executioners and lynch mobs, narcotics and necropoli. Next guest vocalist is Iggy Pop at his most disturbed on ‘Aisha’, which tells a grim story of murder and insanity. Lyrics like:

and science runs with us
making us gods
the rules are all wrong
every perversion is justified
the art people people eat dead bodies
anything goes, around here

make me think of the setting of Warren Ellis’s Transmetropolitan, which the whole album would make a fitting soundtrack for. Hell, Transmetropolitan even had a volume called Dirge -- not a coincidence, I think. Pop talks rather than sings and at one point breaks into what sounds like a gargling solo. No, really.

‘Broken Little Sister’ has vocals by Jim Reid of Jesus and Mary Chain and a bassline right out of Joy Division. The title alone tells you that your next few minutes aren’t going to be any more joyous. However, the album’s overall mood of despair is contrasted with several uplifting moments. ‘Lever Street’ has keyboard standing in for church organ. ‘Neptune City’ trundles along at a nice paced, its guitars have a peaceful, eastern sound and the trumpets are downright cheery. ‘Aladdin’s Story’ is another uplifting song, despite the wailing of something that sounds like a saxophone and its only lyric the blues refrain: "nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen/nobody knows the sorrow." As well as preventing the album from becoming a one-dimensional angstfest, these moments highlight the lows of the rest of the album making its dark hues seem even blacker.

Death in Vegas sound as morbid as their name suggests, but this isn’t the sound of troubled teenagers you may associate with angsty music. This is so saturated in melancholy world-weariness it sounds like the songs were written by unquiet ghosts.

This is music for haunting the living or lying in the gutter.