make that six...

really feeling: stop press

Rufige Kru, Malice in Wonderland (Metalheadz)
Every bit as good as the Man like K-punk sez, this preserves the near-inviolate repute of the Rufige brand.
This is not so much an exercise in auto-retro as a invocation of lost powers, a going-back to bring-forward: death-ray riffs and menacing treated vocals (think "this is a bad", "jim skreech" ) conjure the classic "Darkrider"/Rage-late-92-on-the-cusp-of-bliss-2-dark mood-meld of manic and macabre, but the beats are absolutely contemporary in d&b terms. Which would normally be a negative but here the sheer size of sound (the ear pictures this massive virtual drum kit) and the bounding cyborg-cheetah propulsiveness are thrilling plus there's all kinds of exuberantly wayward drumfunk-style fills and flourishes richoteting off the basic jacknife-groove to divert the ear.