Devotion is a charming and occasionally hypnotising album of bass-heavy electronic tracks, swathed in Indian sitars, flutes, strings and various hand played wooden instruments, with the beats remaining fairly contemporary – especially on the upbeat Qalanderi.

However, with the market for such music having long-saturated the record store shelves – or what’s left of record stores at least, I can’t help thinking that for all its sparkling production and interweaving ethnic samples, Devotion is overly derivative of a style of music deliberately stylised for Western audiences. The escalating grooves and mesmeric interwoven vocals of Aaye Bhairav Bholanath are well worth a listen though – it’s one of the few occasions that Devotion stands out from being just another simplistic crossover voyage in Eastern/Western musical relations.

Devotion may well appear fashionable to the Asian youth market, which will see a break from tradition via its contemporary electronic sound – but, ironically, to those who have already heartily consumed on the likes of Western artists such as Delerium, Enigma, Deep Forest or Dead Can Dance – Chen i Sabbah is probably not far reaching enough an experiment in World electronica.

A pleasant album, with some succulent female vocal contributions – Devotion doesn’t quite carry the authenticity of, say, the legendary Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. The fact that the track Kinna Sonha was originally penned by the deceased Pakistani perhaps tells you that Devotion is not quite the real deal, but a welcome break from whatever you’re probably listening to these days regardless.