LSK’s rich soulful voice compliments Jazz’s warm rhythmic delivery

LSK’s rich, soulful voice compliments Jazz’s warm, rhythmic delivery.Dido, too, makes her usual Faithless appearance, her glacial tones delicately jousting with Jazz’s lava voice on “No Roots”. (Singing on her brother Rollo’s records is, after all, what inspired her to ditch her publishing job and pursue a music career of her own.) But it is multi-instrumentalist Bliss’s heaving beats and trademark riffs – her crashing ocean of soaring and driving sounds – that elevates No Roots from a socio-political diatribe to the giddy highs of a DJ set.But, for all its thought-provoking themes and rousing sonics, No Roots is essentially an album about love. “We’re trying to put across an idea of an all-inclusive love,” explains Jazz. While songs such as “In The End” and “I Want More” invite us to question the double standards in our society, the more personal “Miss U Less, See U More” and the title track, highlight the fact that, as Jazz says, “all our basic needs and wants have no cultural demarcation.” That includes our need to belong.There’s a good chance this Faithless tour will be their last. The gigs won’t stop, nor will the albums, but the relentless travelling will. Life, they say, is just too short to be spent on a bus.”We’re all getting on brilliantly and the music’s great,” says Bliss “That’s not the problem. The sex I’m not getting is the problem!”The pair burst into knowing giggles Nine years of hard work has, in one way, paid off.

Dance culture may lie in tatters, yet Faithless remain popular – Radio 1 is all over the single. But it’s time the band devoted the same effort to their personal lives. They are ready to put down some roots of their own.”But whatever we do,” says Jazz, a huge smile brightening his eyes, “we’ll make sure the vibe is wonderful. Always.”The single ‘Mass Destruction’ is out on 31 May on Arista ‘No Roots’ is released on 7 June.

Sam Herlihy, the affable front man of Hope of the States, one of this country’s most promising new bands, sits up in his seat and puffs out his chest “We’re cool – we’re very cool,” he says But he’s a little unconvincing. Undeniably talented, critically acclaimed and rightfully hyped as the heirs to Radiohead’s blistering-rock mantle Hope of the States may be. But cool, in the desirably aloof, emotionally unfazed way extolled by the Fonz, perfected by Clint Eastwood and so valued by New York’s garage bands, they are not. Overflowing with the giddiness of sixth-formers on a school trip, they’re simply far too excited for that. After spending a few hours apart, the close-knit band have some catching-up to do before they sound-check for tonight’s gig. Over pints of lager and glasses of Jack Daniel’s and Coke, they swap tales of their afternoon while their front man shows off his toy-like squeeze-box, bought for £15 from a music shop across town.

So pleased is Herlihy with his new purchase (if he had a tail, it would be wagging like a windscreen wiper), he can’t wait to play to his bandmates the tune that he has already composed on it – and nice it is, too.The band’s glee is clearly genuine Granted, they have many reasons to be cheerful. Since signing to Sony in a label frenzy that Herlihy modestly underplays, the band have been riding a wave of critical adulation. And it wasn’t long before the public caught on, too, when chart success for their first single proper, “Enemies/Friends”, released last September, earned the band a slot on Top of the Pops “It was awful,” Herlihy laughs. “There was us, drinking JD and Coke and smoking lots, wearing old army jackets, hair all over the place, stubble everywhere. And then there was S Club Juniors, doing dance routines in the corridor.” He shakes his head. “We were fish out of water.” But the band may have to brace themselves for another appearance on the show. Their new single, the defiant “The Red, the White, the Black, the Blue”, has soared into the charts this week at No 15.And yet all these smiles – this puppy-like enthusiasm – are a little unexpected.