Bit of a strange one these guys, with their mix of funny spoken word poetry and electronic hip-hop beats. I appreciate them having been on the poetry scene as their peer but to hear them on chart shows and radios, I'm amazed at the crossover potential. Who'd have thunk? How well would they have done without their calling card, the funny damning NME-bashing 'Thou Shalt Not Kill' viciously damning hipsters trendies and cool kids only to then be embraced by self-effacing hipsters, trendies and cool kids.
Well done them then.
Both hailing from Southend and using its small-town ennui as a pallette for their emotive undeniably suffocated worldview, they find themselves using these themes in a more global setting. From pisstakes on the blinkered views of UK hip-hop and its niche narrow-mindedness on 'Rapper's Battle' to majestic and amazingly, Radiohead-sampling, 'Letter from God to Man' a medium on the deserter creator, there are some great lyrical conceits here. Whole songs exploring meaningful themes and delivering an album to the hipsters full of thought, emotion, metaphor, imagery and poetry. It's amazing that this has crossed-over in the way it has. And inspiring. There is a lack of choruses, as the lyrics are always founded in a rhythmical fully-rounded body of couplets, and sometimes Scroobius sounds a little garbled forced to set his rhythms, patterns and poetry to beats but on the whole this is a strong, consistently interesting, constantly funny look at modern life, in Southend and in the UK as a whole. Dan le Sac shows a good ear for melodic electronic beats that allow for hip-hop, dance, soul and indie to all represent in a smorgasbord of versatility. Check this out, just for the fact that it's poetry making an impact on the UK music scene, and, Holy Tennyson, it's good.
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