How high can a remix-heavy disc go when it's built on the dodgiest and lousiest of foundations? Not very, in the case of Ladies in the Back by the upwardly mobile and otherwise capable UK producer Star Slinger. This EP features a title track, a clean variant, and five remixes, but everything is almost sunk from square one thanks to the base tune. "Ladies" is a thinly sketched, mid-tempo, clubby number — inoffensive and unremarkable enough — turned terrible by monotonously sung vocals about women who love booty grinding, 808s, and lip-syncing. It's too dumb and awkwardly delivered to be conventionally worthwhile ("Slow and sexy wins the race" is really said out loud), yet too blasé for "so bad, it's good" entertainment. What's left is a half-baked, Lonely Island–like send-up of contemporary dance music aesthetics. On the remixes, Chrissy Murderbot's mash-up party and Jay Far's tempo-jumping actually work pretty well, because they move away from that frustrating original riddle.
