Here's one for you. I know a guy who knows the girl one from High Places. He's got friends in High Places. A friend... Whatever.But hey, who wouldn't want friends in High Places? They're the intrepid New York twosome who used to make music that sounded like a haunted jungle, and now they make music that sounds like a haunted disco jungle. A quick scan through your average Pitchfork Forkcast suggests that every second musician nowadays (ie: pretty much all the ones who at least have enough dignity not to want to be classified as 'folk') has realised that explicitly danceable beats and synths is the most direct route to awesome town. But only a scant few manage it in a way that doesn't just sound cooked-up with some half-baked object name 'Microwave' or 'Gas Hob' (I'm making dinner while I write this) and as if its destined for some haircuts to dance to, think about tweeting about and forget. I'm doing that thing right now where music journalists apply general rules to all of contemporary reality in order to be sarcastic towards some in fact quite small group of people who they have no real connection to. <----- hey look I'm doing it againAnyway, High Places know what the deal is. They've made it to album #3 pretty quickly whilst remaining both a) good and b) fairly inconspicuous. Keep a trend like this going and you have a genuinely interesting art-pop career on your hands. In addition to this, with High Places vs. Mankind, they have corrected the #1 weakness that really stood out as a weakness on their previous albums, 3/07-9/07 and High Places: the fact that their album titles were really rubbish. Now they have one of the best album titles since Bring Me The Head of British Sea Power, which British Sea Power could have called their second album but didn't (there is a direct correlation between this decision and with it being with the exception of 'Please Stand Up' less good than The Decline Of...).Titles aside though, what does this album change? Well, as I said before, the main change is that (some of it is) a lot more obviously danceable than before. The album kicks off with 'The Longest Shadows', which is aback-takingly moody and funky only not in a crap way like those two adjectives might make it sound. Even better is 'On Giving Up', which follows it, and carries on the sort of Italians Do It Better trend in much the same manner. This represents, as I made clear in the introduction, something of a departure from their earlier work. In fact though, the story isn't entirely that straightforward: after the opening pair, the album mostly reverts to the type established on their earlier albums, with some tracks like 'Constant Winter' sounding more like the opening tracks but others like 'She's A Wild Horse' very much rooted in the sound the duo had already established. This is in a way a good thing: it would be a shame to lose the High Places I know and love. But in another way, it would have been better if they'd followed through more on the precedent established by the openers. Not least, this is because 'The Longest Shadows' and 'On Giving Up' are the best songs on this album. It would have been fine if they'd produced another record just like the self-titled album if there'd been another 'From Stardust To Sentience' on it but there isn't, really.In sum, come album #4, High Places referring to current trends be a mutant art-pop disco act that is a genuine force.