Drum-and-bass fans jump back; Irish DJ Dara already has the American scene cornered. His Future Perfect is looking like just that -- an indication of things to come -- and his present is pretty damn good. Anyone who was disappointed in Rinsimus Maximus (I wasn't) can rest assured that Dara is in top form here. Future Perfect is a lot lighter than Halfway Home, as well. It's far more energetic and upbeat; perhaps Dara has had enough of exploring his dark side.

As a DC native, I must compare DJ Dara to DJ Spooky, although Spooky is more intellectual and Dara's production is slicker than patent-leather thigh-highs. Future Perfect opens with "Blue Rose", in which a woman commands the listener, in a dreamy but firm voice, to "Relax". Dara's tongue-in-cheek joke tag line is quickly belied by the hard-hitting breakbeats, which come across with the power of a speed chase experienced from the back seat of a panda car with its bubble lights running. If you're not a speed freak -- and I am speaking only in terms of velocity here -- don't bother to listen. Want to get your heart racing? You could drink five cups of espresso -- or just listen to Dara's remix of Universal Project's "Bleach". To say the least, the beat is muscular and furious. "Need You", easily the best track in a long list of fab stuff, hits a BPM speed that I can't even guesstimate.

Dara reprises his hard, funky jungle gambit here, but there's not much chillout material -- except for "Blue Rose", which is intended to get you gently lathered before Dara moves into the serious spin cycle. Very few of the tracks have vocal samples, and those that do use only minimal vocal bites in repetitive loops. Still, it's an improvement over totally instrumental d'n'b. And the track progression is creamy -- each track melts into the next like chalk colours on a rain-washed sidewalk. As d'n'b goes, Future Perfect will do for a rinse.

When you're getting ready to go to a club, or coming home from a club, or are stuck in the middle of the week and can't make it to a club, Future Perfect is the album to play. In fact, this album is so damn good, there's no further point in talking about it -- if you haven't already bought it, you should -- case closed. This leaves me with one last question: Dara, man, why'd you cut your hair?