Yahoo! Music Album Review

Released on 29/01/06
Label: Virgin

A couple of newspaper features have recently claimed that the appearance of Jamie Treays and Jack Allsopp (aka Just Jack aka the Happy Shopper Mike Skinner) in the Top Ten is proof that the UK is finally embracing a homegrown MC culture, albeit a couple of decades too late. It's an interesting argument, but one that raises a number of quibbles - namely: a. that you only need to sell 5,000 downloads to break the Top Ten these days (which, with a major label marketing budget shouldn't be too difficult); and b. ever so slightly disrespectful to the UK hip hop scene which, although avowedly non-mainstream, has uncovered a range of talent from Rodney P and Roots Manuva to Sway, Klashnekoff and C-Mone. Maybe such artists don't count. Too black. Too limited an appeal…

In fact, musical references aside, what Treays and Allsopp actually do is talk like many of their London peers. In other words, they jumble 'chim-chim cher-ee' cockney with Jamaican - affecting the sort of vanilla patois referenced by The Libertines' "Campaign Of Hate" ("Rich kids dressing like they're poor, white kids talking like they're black"). Over an entire album this is, understandably, wearing; but then again, didn't Mick Jagger base a whole career on mimicking the bluesmen of the Mississippi Delta just a couple of generations earlier? Isn't Bobby Gillespie just an amalgamation of other people's ideas? Ditto Jack White.

This is what pop stars do - take, take, take. Originality is wishful thinking. It's what you embellish those reference points with - hopefully some individuality - that counts. Thankfully, Treays has individuality in spades. From his haircut and strangulated vowels to the cut-and-paste structure of his tunes, he's a class apart from his more slickly-packaged contemporaries. There aren't too many albums that introduce themselves with a cry of, "F*cking croissant!!" either, but this is precisely what kicks off the self-mythologizing rockabilly skank of "Brand New Bass Guitar", and "Panic Prevention" contains at least six other songs that could feature on any self-respecting 2007 best of.

Most will probably know the winning triumvirate of "If You Got The Money", "Sheila", and "Calm Down Dearest", but previous single "Salvador" plus "Back In The Game" and "So Lonely Was The Ballad" also shine. The unlikely fusion of Billy Bragg's electric bloke folk with rocksteady and Bontempi beats should sound like sh*t on a plate (at times, on "Pacemaker" and "Dry Your Cheeks", it does) but Treays' ability to locate a chorus from the depths of confusion is enough to see him through.

And that's really the rub. For all the one-paced nature of its songwriting, wilfully lo-fi production values, inevitable Lily Allen comparisons and grating larynx, "Panic Prevention" is still an enthralling debut, and one that says infinitely more about the life of young Londoners than any amount of Bloc Party seriousness. Whether the album or its maker will be a footnote or a headline in three years hence, who knows - but for now, this is an important and imperfect snapshot of an era.

    by Adam Webb