The Fujiya & Miyagi sound is a familiar one – David Best’s sotto voce vocals sat on top of bleeps and grooves that bear a Krautrock influence. And so it proves again, with traces of the preoccupations Best has with manufactured products, from which the album’s title comes. While the music is well done the only problem is that Fujiya & Miyagi have done this on previous albums to better effect. There’s nothing bad about this record at all, but it retreads stylistic and lyrical ground rather too easily. If you’re happy with that then you’ll enjoy the tidy riffing of ‘Acid To My Alkaline’, the way ‘Tetrahydrofolic Acid’ plays with skewed beats and wobbly synth sounds, or the strutting beat of ‘Vagaries of Fashion’, one of the album’s best tracks. While it’s not a dud by any means – and does everything that the Brighton outfit have become known for – ‘Artificial Sweeteners’ could perhaps do with more of an edge.
3 out of 5
Reviewed By Ben Hogwood
