Yahoo! Music Album Review

Released on 25/01/06
Label: Ninja Tune

It's nearly 20 years since Matt Black and Jonathan More changed musical history with their landmark remix of Eric B & Rakim's "Paid In Full", and almost ten since the mighty "Let Us Play!" defined the UK's music landscape post house. That album in particular, which joined the dots between punk, funk, rap and electronics, was a watershed. Still fresh today, it was perhaps the true "Screamadelica": a melting pot of ideas from a duo whose life's mission was to knock down barriers.

In many respects, "Sound Mirrors" is that album's true successor. Sidestepping through a conflicting series of genres, and employing everyone from Roots Manuva and Robert Miles to newcomer Mpho Skeef it comes close to replicating one of Black and More's sensory overloading Solid Steel DJ sets. Arguably the most consistent album of their career, it is a small miracle that all twelve tracks originate from the same source. At times, this is the record of the duo's career.

And yet overall it is also carries a whiff of dissatisfaction. This could well be down to the change of era. When "Let Us Play!" was released, men who could spun records for a living were considered highly-skilled artisans, Britpop was dying on it's arse, Ibiza was yet to become Hell on Earth and the drugs induced feelings of fuzzy communality.

Now it's all change. Most DJs are rocking wine bars (arguably where most of them belonged), boys with guitars are back, Ibiza is about as alluring as Basra and the drugs are like Bostik. Play "Walk A Mile In My Shoes", "Sound Mirror"'s epic end-of-the-rave white glove anthem to a crowd of teenagers today and they'd most likely happy slap you death. For while times have changed, Coldcut have seemingly not. At times this is for the best.

Inauspicious opener "Man In A Garage" could be Massive Attack circa 1993 playing a dubbed-out folk song, while "Just For The Kick" is a menacing techno monster that forces you to instinctively whack up the bass. All dance is dead rumours are truly cindered. Even more scorching is "Everything Is Under Control", where Jon Spencer's Brother JC Crawford impression gives way to an energetic Mike Ladd rap about capitalism, "Big Brother", Murdoch and the Texas mafia, and the undoubted highlight is Skeef's contribution to "This Island Earth" where the Bugz In The Attic vocalist provides several more reasons why she should be a major star.

Elsewhere, the music is solid but predictable - not a term you'd normally apply to Coldcut. Contributions from Roots Manuva, Soweto Kinch (a finger-wagging lecture about charitable donations) and Andrew Brader raise few surprises, and the less said about Saul Williams the better. His tale about a crestfallen banker ("Mr Nichols") appears to have pulled from a Marillion album.

Such a ratio of misses to hits was not expected but, all things considered, this is still one of the best electronic-based albums you're going to hear this year. Albeit one you're advised to cherry pick from your nearest download site. Sometimes you see, the future can be cruel.

    by Adam Webb