Forget the dance thing, baby. Love Inc.'s next big single could well be a ballad.

A ballad? From Canada's reigning dance king and queen?

"Really," singer Simone Denny says. "The title song from our new album, Into the Night, is going over great live, people seem to know the words and they love the little energy break it gives them in the show."

Still, releasing a slower song as a single would be something new for Denny and deejay/MC/Love Inc. mastermind Chris Sheppard. The expatriate Brit has been the most commercially successful Canadian dance deejay for much of the past decade and when Love Inc. broke through to the masses, it was on the basis of his non-stop dance groove, not ballads.

Songs such as Broken Bones and You're a Superstar relied on a mix of Sheppard's propulsive dancebeats and Denny's soaring, dipped-in-honey R&B vocals to become international hits when Love Inc. burst on the scene in 1998. For most fans, that heart-thumping blend of beats and song is the Love Inc. sound.

But Denny says there's much more to Love Inc. than simply a beatbox, an MC and a diva.

"Into the Night was co-written with Dan Hill (writer of Sometimes When We Touch) and it's really meant to be a showcase of everything we're capable of," she says. "And when we do it live it lets people know that we are indeed performing live and not just lip-synching."

Sheppard and Denny are criss-crossing the country with a two-person dance team before jetting to Europe in the spring. The pair has sold three million singles around the world since 1998, and Denny, 29, says the group will probably visit every continent on the Into the Night tour.

"It's important to get out in front of the people, to show them how much energy there is to what we do. When you come to our show, it's very interactive. It's not just 'Here, watch me sing.' We interact with the audience, with each other, with the dancers.

"It's an energetic, uplifting experience."

The pair will continue spreading the faith tonight at Le Rendez-Vous.