Rhythm & Stealth

Four years on from the monumental Leftism, Neil Barnes and Paul Daley are back with their second opus, Rhythm & Stealth. Again, they have a host of collaborators to help them create their sonic soundscapes, including London rap’s brightest star, Roots Manuva, and former Curtis Mayfield disciple Nicole Willis. But do the beats remain the same?

More pared down than their debut, Rhythm & Stealth is still an intoxicating cocktail of musical mastery. For those who moan that it all sounds the same, just hear the first three tracks and see how Messrs Barnes and Daley weave their magic in and around hip-hop, breakbeat, house, trance and practically every other dance genre you can name.

Take the masterful ‘Phat Planet’, the soundtrack to the current Guinness ad with the surfers and the ghostly white horses –its chaotic headrush of beats pounds its way around the bloodvessels in your cranium. ‘Double Flash’ sees Leftfield building up their own brand of house on rock-solid foundations, while ‘Dub Gusset’’s resonating electronica seemingly pulses straight into the bloodstream.

Elsewhere, the brilliant ‘Afrika Shox’ mutates from an atmospheric intro into a maelstrom of noise, spewing lyrics and beats with equal venom, testing the boundaries of electronic tension. Whether these boys are the prophets of ‘intelligent dance’ or not is open for debate, but this unquestionably rocks in a big way.

Rhythm & Stealth is an album of paradoxes, at once gentle and insistent; hypnotic and alarming; numbing and enlivening. This is one of the only albums I’ve ever heard that truly deserves the maxim: ‘Must Be Played Loud’. These ear-splitting, heart-pumping beats deserve their natural environment.

Turn up the volume and let them fly.