Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs (TEED), the stage name of the equally exotic sounding Orlando Higginbottom, has been one of the hotest artists in recent months. With tracks such as Garden getting not just critical acclaim, but plenty of spins on mainstream radio and ">TV ads (in the UK at least). In what promises to be not just one of the biggest electronic albums of the year, but one of the biggest albums of the year full stop, does Trouble live up to the hype?

There’s been plenty of talk from Higginbottom in recent months about writing an album with ‘shelf life’, and certainly the album offers a refreshing taste of great song writing combined with beautifully crafted sounds and dance-floor worthy beats. Trouble has a unique and varied sound, ranging from the wonderfully soulful You Need Me On My Own, to the dubsteppy and surprisingly deep Closer. Influences from the currently flourishing UK bass scene are obvious and welcome, whilst remaining approachable.

Solid vocals and great album structure are too much of a rarity when it comes to electronic albums, and it’s clear that each track has been crafted with real musicianship and care. I particularly liked the call and response that happens with a number of the tracks and their reprises. A good example of this is Panpipes after You Need Me On My Own; clever use of the vocals and rhythmic elements from the previous track help to create a sort of night and day partnership, really helping to keep the album moving through all fourteen tracks. There are some infectiously catchy hooks as well; the opener Promises has a great little bridge section, whilst Household Goods uses seriously brutal bass synth to good effect. It’s the little details that really make this album sparkle.

There were a couple of things I wasn’t quite sure about after listening through a few times however; some tracks tend to be  slightly too long, particularly the reprise tracks such as Panpipes and American Dream, Pt. II, although this doesn’t mean they aren’t good, they just might have benefitted from having a slimmed down album version to keep things fresh. Overall though, I thought it was a great album and certainly lived up to expectations. More than anything, Trouble gives me hope that the mainstream taste for brash and bland ‘EDM’ inspired tracks featuring big name vocalists hasn’t entirely taken over the charts. In the first few days of release on iTunes here in the UK it hovered within the top ten, which is an undeniably impressive achievement.

So, has TEED succeeded in creating an album with ‘shelf life’? Only time will tell, but certainly as far as releases in 2012 are concerned, this is way up there with the best of them. Catchy enough to have one foot in pop, whilst also having a lot to offer for the more discerning listener, Trouble is a refreshing return to the carefree and fun listening that is so often lacking in many recent dance releases.

Trouble is out now on Polydor.