Dobie is quite literally an artist who paints pictures – so if you like the front cover artwork on this release you’d be well advised to get it physically rather than on download. He is also a man with a wide range of beats and tricks at his disposal, for although ‘We Will Not Harm You’ often takes hip hop as its starting point, it feels free to move around as it chooses. We get an old style riff for ‘Stan Lee Is A Hero Of Mine’, seemingly taken from an old drawer of hip hop samples, and then there are some inventive beat patterns for ‘She Moans’ and ‘On The Corner Of Ridley Road’, which breaks out in to a pretty nippy tempo, with a big wedge of UK garage. Early on it can feel like he’s trying to cram too much in, but once the album settles down it is more consistently rewarding.
4 out of 5
Reviewed By Ben Hogwood
