Bring Out The Sound

UK hip hop’s original and best live band are back with brand new album Bring Out The Sound, released on BBE Music. Inviting a carefully chosen group of guest vocalists to join them in their London studio, Bring Out The Sound presents a diverse blend of soulful songs, hip hop bangers and original instrumental funk breaks, made all the more impressive by its complete absence of sampling, an album from the heat of The Herbaliser. Famous for his pop smash Starz In Their Eyes (sadly as relevant now as it ever was), Camden vocalist Just Jack lays down an incredibly moving performance over lush horns and strings on the instant classic Seize The Day. The London Posse’s own Rodney P spits lyrical fre alongside 28Luchi over the reggae-infused, unmistakably British beats of Like Shaft. Former Senseless Things member and Libertines collaborator Mark Keds creates an almost uncomfortably intimate, confessional atmosphere on the intensely personal 20 Years To The Day. Compared by Mark Ronson to a young Minnie Ripperton, UK singer STAC’s voice cuts through with a breathy kind of clarity on Over and Over. But the Herbaliser band has always been so much more than the sum of its collaborators. Languid, powerful hip hop beats and uncompromising production values underpin impressive performances by all the band members, especially the horn section who track after track, turn in vintage performances. These guys make it all sound so easy that by the time we reach Takedown, a track that sounds for all the world like a forgotten b-boy anthem by The Incredible Bongo Band.