Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ

To bring the subject around to the matter at hand, Fraser assigned me this song to review because, and I quote, "I'd be VERY interested to hear what you make of it". So, first of all, I can't have been the only person to think of upon hearing the intro, can I? It doesn't seem like it's an actual sample, but the similarity is uncanny.

Having got that out of the way, my second impression was that this felt so much the opposite of what I'd expect from a Snoop Dogg track that I was almost inclined to give it five stars automatically for blindsiding me like that. It's very retro, very laid-back, full of vocodered voices and lazy, blurry beats. It's surprisingly effective, in that it finds its way into your brain without appearing to make any real effort.

And yet, there's almost something infuriating about its laziness. I kept thinking that if the track is this good running on a half-empty tank of petrol, wouldn't it have been amazing firing on all cylinders? The track just sort of breezes along without a care in the world, and ends anticlimactically without ever really having developed or gone anywhere, which is one of my biggest pet peeves, to be honest. There's no journey here; it's the aural equivalent of being taken for a drive around the ring-road on a Sunday afternoon. It's not that you didn't appreciate the gesture, but you wondered why you bothered with all that effort only to end up exactly where you started.

I think the trick with this one is just to let it pick you up and drift you away. Try not to overthink it like I just clearly did; you might end up ruining a perfectly enjoyable song.

Download: Out now
CD Released: March 24th

(Steve Perkins)