"Life is one big road," begins the Badmarsh & Shri mantra, "with lots of signs and more signs. You got to make up your mind..." And from that soulful, quasi-philosophical beginning, the group's record proceeds to ask a question: do you want to face reality, and hear what's in front of you, or don't you? Facing reality means facing the fact that life is good, that music is good, and that knowing these two things won't prevent music and life from occasionally blowing you away. Whatever your expectations for this second record by Badmarsh & Shri, the group have outdone themselves. Signs celebrates its fifty minutes of dance, sighs and ginger-spiced skies by leaving your speakers with all the mysteries of a swaying hip.

The group's guiding "recipe" merges Indian music with the best parts of the London dance underground, and I guess, at first, it is like that long-ago accident when your best friend dropped chocolaty beats in your peanutty tub of Jimmy Somerville. Neither of you know what to expect, but you gave it a go because you liked the ingredients separately. Then -- surprise surprise -- the results were so revolutionary that you were no longer willing to settle for an Urban Cookie Collective to fill you up.

Like Hollywood anecdotes about acid, the music of Badmarsh & Shri successfully clears your mind of rote and familiar signs in your daily life and fills you with the vision of their own world. It's surprising, though, that their new world, which seems so brand-spanking clean and fresh, is still as accessible and as positive as Oprah. The group make fun lines ("Do you know where you're drumming from?") burn with joyous philosophical underpinnings, and turns overused, idealistic sentiment ("Let's get together and make we all unite") into a world of deeply felt possibilities. How do they do this? It's hard to pinpoint, but probably was learned during the two years they spent creating this record. During that period, they neither added endless layers of found sounds nor mixed melodies together like spices in a curry dish. Instead, the group simply opened up the spiritual veins beneath the music's skin and let it shower unencumbered.

Every form of dance music is tried and mastered here, from light techno and drum-and-bass to smooth Indian soul and sing-speak raps at the Bombay Corral. Christine Klubben elegantly conquers Sade's oeuvre ("We'll watch sunsets at our own pace") against a cinematic, Pet-Shop-beaten sweep, while the artfully employed Strings of Bombay throw missionary "Tribal" zeal against a clamoring percussive root of raves and go-gos that last until dawn.

The record is intelligently arranged, and focuses on the harder, more driving rhythms early on. In "Signs", "Swarm" and "Get Up", only the intermittent sound of flutes, tablas and smooth foreign accents suggests this is not merely Fatboy Slim at an enjoyable peak. Then, like Satyajit Ray's major cinematic statement on dance music, it begins to sound important -- and as your body keeps moving, you feel the music spread out in a flood of rich color, like painters' oils on canvas.

Badmarsh & Shri are almost alone among bands these days in trimming melodies to their most primal and vibrant. It's clear that every sign that guided Ace of Base pointed to Badmarsh & Shri. Go there and have a good time.