REVIEW - SURVIVAL: SURVIVAL

Format: CD album
Released: June 15
Label: Exit

Former Bad Company cohort D-Bridge not only makes unusual and original music - now, it seems in both drum and bas and dubstep form - he also has an ear for equally enthralling music in his A&R role running Exit Records.

Here he's picked up on the debut album by London duo Steve Kielty and Roy Mcabe, who go for a similarly slanted, if slightly differently flavoured, mixture of fierce beats and deep, almost meditational atmospheres. Kielty has a track record that stretches back as far as the early days of jungle/d&b, when he made tunes for Partisan and Vinyl Addiction in 1993/4, and that experience shows through clearly here.

The opening salvo of tunes, 'Walk On By', 'Heeding The Sign' and 'Hit You When You're Down' all operate on fairly familiar terriotry, namely driving, heads down d&b, hard edged but still completely devoid of the gnarly wobble bass cliches of jump up. 'Even Up' is more ingenious still, choppy jungle breaks giving it an old skool feel but combined again with a swirling, ethereal feel.

The next section of the album goes into less palatable jazz-influenced territory, 'Feelings Gone' with its Portsihead-like vocals from Christina Nicola and 'Baker Street'-style saxophone soaring, and 'Still Don't Know' with its twittering flutes proving cliched in places. But 'Terrain' quickly dispels that, much more original as distorted giitars simmer below the surface while bongos and an almost Detroit techno keyboard riff keep the momentum up. 'Ascendancy' is the album's seemingly obligatory 'Bladerunner' reference, but 'Seventh Sign's onslaught of chunky, churning techstep beats is a real highlight, the spectre of No U Turn/Ed Rush & Optical continuing on into 'Too Little Too Late'.

'Survival' is a strange mixture - rigidly stuck in the laws and speed of d&b (there's no sign of a downbeat, dubstep or hip-hop moment here), nevertheless still managing to find real vibe and flavour within those constraints.
3&1/2 /5