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The Daily Tar Heel

Further in Time Combines Multiculturalism, Music

So after three albums of mixing Celtic strings, African rhythms, electronica, modern song structures and whatever else struck their fancy, the 10 musicians comprising the Afro Celt Sound System stop being clever and start sounding like a band on Volume 3: Further in Time.

It's a welcome shift from earlier efforts. When the Afro Celt Sound System got together in the '90s, they sounded more like the result of a master's thesis than a band -- even the band members admit Volume 1: Sound Magic was basically a glorified science project.

The pretensions of the band's early works, coupled with the genuine originality of their mixing various traditional genres, turned each album into a mind-altering substance -- headache-inducing yet strangely fascinating. The music's energy level and sense of movement were lacking because the band always sounded painfully self-conscious and arty, as if they knew what they were doing was so new they felt compelled make it more so.

But now the effect is more mind-expanding than mind-altering. Each of Further in Time's 12 tracks are self-assured and unforced without sacrificing the boundless energy that made earlier albums so engaging.

With "Lagan," "North" and "When You're Falling" (featuring the equally ingenius Peter Gabriel) serving as textbook examples, the album allows the genius of the band's style to become more clear.

These songs feature similar elements -- the speed and delicacy of the Celtic violins matched with pounding, authoritative African rhythms and Iarla O Lion

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