*** Vengaboys

THE PARTY ALBUM

(Strictly Rhythm)

The Vengaboys are a four-dancer-and-two-DJ Eurodisco act from Spain, where sweet-fast Eurodisco has always had a large pop following. Strictly Rhythm, a seminal house-music label, hopes that the Vengaboys' hard, boyish beat and youthful expression will attract a US audience, as the girlie sweetness of mainstream Euro does not. And if the tough techno of "Superfly Slick," the jump-for-joy exuberance of "We Like To Party," and the house moves of "The Vengabeat" don't display enough newness of style to mesmerize America's blondeness addicts, there's no way clubbies will pass up the hooky bubblegum of "Up & Down" and "Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom!!" The group's Americanizations fade, however, in the presence of softcore dreaminess like "You and Me" and "Paradise . . . " and the girlie chic of "Vengababes from Outer Space," their rewrite of 1998's craziest Euro gem, Babe Instinct's "Disco Babes from Outer Space" -- a feast of dance-floor flirtation hitherto unseen except in Italy.

-- Michael Freedberg