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The Herbaliser are certainly consistent - I dont really have an answer for why they havent been well chart successful over their last 3 LP's cos they've been hitting my stereo hard for ages now. They have their own sound n' you definitely know what to expect from a Herbaliser track. Good musicianship allied with great guest vocalists - quality orchestral arrangements n' a high quality of instrumentation to give that organic layered vibe. This LP is 13 tracks deep - just like the other LP's it features a high number of UK rappers with Phi Life Cypher, Blade, and Wildflower holdin down honours against an energised Dilated Peoples and easily killing off MF Doom's lazy performance. The production is heavily prepared and as such sounds pure slick - smoothly oozing out the speaker - but thats No Sleep Nigel's signature dropkick move. This is an LP for chilling with - the album inserts long orchestral tracks between shorter more hiphop/breaks driven hybrids. This makes it a sitdown n' chillout experience rather than a pick me up set of straight sequenced music. You sorta get this vibe - and it can be shown from the first four tracks. Open track 'Something Wicked' bops along with a ruff little female vocal - this gets swiftly followed by the quirky comic style hiphop beat on 'Verbal Anime' (w/ Dilated) and then the uptempo organic britcore style 'Time 2 Build' (w/ Blade) - the next track '24 Carat Blag' instrumentally hops in cutting n' blending up deep fried funk n' James Bond style breaks. This mixture of style makes the LP come alive with vibe - theres no boring moment where the fastforward or tone arm gets some action. I know I'm feelin a LP when I'm already wondering what these tracks are gonna sound like live. I cant wait for the Herbaliser Bands interpretation of 'Mr Holmes', 'Something Wicked', 'Good Girl Gone Bad' and 'Battle of Bongo Hill'. Those arent my expressly favourite tracks but they contain enough musicality to make me mouth water at the prospect of live brass, drums n' strings rippin them up to perfection. I'm not feeling every track (the Phi Life track sounds well messy) n' feel that some tracks were overlong n' slightly over-egged (e.g. Mr Holmes). Though this is extra picky when the good moments outweigh the gripes by a ratio politicians would love to control. Personal highlights include the drum pattern programming masterpiece in 'Battle of Bongo Hill', the slinky skankin 'Good Girl Gone Bad', the uprock Rocky-esque style of 'Worldwide Connected' and finally the class female vocal clickin 'Something Wicked' into neck hair raising place. Overall - a quality LP with at least six to seven outstanding tracks. You should be buying this if you like live hiphop music or just dig the well arranged musicality of a multi faceted band in action. Ruffness in full effect. I reckon I could lock myself in my room for six months n' still know this be the best LP dropped during the first half of 2002. Feeling the vibes for sure. - Smiffy | profile
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