The second album under the Yesking name is a strong one. Rhys Adams has called in a number of favours, but his guests are well chosen and lend the album variety and emotional depth. Musically the sound takes in a variety of styles, majoring on a sound that has a reggae swing to it but also bringing in dub, soul, rap and a continual sense of funk in the writing. Crucially Adams keeps it all unified, so that it doesn’t sound anywhere near a compilation. The smoky, sultry vocals in ‘Devil Inside’ are good, and have a frisson of attitude, while there is a slightly sinister edge to the lyrics of ‘Run Boy Run’, with its big brother connotations in ‘gathering data behind them eyes that never blink’. Meanwhile ‘Chicken Chops’ and ‘Secret King’ have a strongly communal feel, the latter with an especially positive vibe. The progression, then, is that ‘Re-Record’ starts off quite chilled but gets bigger as it goes on – meaning that once you’ve got to the end, the logical next step is to go back to the start pretty much immediately.
5 out of 5
Reviewed By Ben Hogwood
