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808 State, Boards Of Canada, Kid 606
Metropolis
Meat Beat Manifesto:
Autoimmune
Autoimmune
- Electronic
- 2008
- Buy the CD
Reviewed by James B. Eldred
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M
eat Beat Manifesto, a group always known for being a little on the wacky side (i.e. their name) went off the deep end on their last album At the Center, collaborating with jazz musicians to create a strange mixture of jazz and drum & bass/dub that was actually surprisingly good. That record wasn’t for everyone, however – especially fans that missed the group’s early, more menacing and intense sound found in late ‘80s classics like Storm the Studio and Armed Audio Warfare. Perhaps sensing the potential unrest within their hardcore fanbase, MBM’s newest release, Autoimmune, finds the band excising the jazz, and is straight-up MBM. However it’s not a complete return to form, and the album has a few major pitfalls. Thankfully, at over 75 minutes in length, there’s more than enough quality to make up for the slips.
But man, are they some pretty egregious slips. “I Hold the Mic!” and “Young Cassius” both feature MCs of the dancehall reggae school, meaning they rap at a rapid-fire pace that borders on the unintelligible (with the occasional cross into full-on unintelligible). The dub influence in MBM’s music has always been strong, so incorporating reggae into their music might have seemed like a good idea, and maybe it could be, but it sure as hell isn’t here. While “I Hold the Mic!” is at least partly tolerable thanks to some killer beats and music, “Young Cassius” is a failure of colossal proportions. Musically, the song is worthless, with forgettable beats and little else accompanying the sickeningly bad delivery of MC Azeem. His chorus of “Tip of the tongue / The tip of the lips” is so hideously bad that it will make you want to rip off his tongue and lips in the sad hope that it might make him sound better.
The one song with vocals that is worth listening to at all is “Solid Waste,” which also features turntable skills by DJ Z-Trip. He cuts the hell out of this track, and while the song’s reliance on quirky sound effects and vocal samples may sound dated to some, it’s a classic, aggressive sound that combines industrial, dub and drum ‘n’ bass – and one that should never go out of style. Praise aside, “Solid State” doesn’t really sound like an MBM song; it sounds more like MBM guesting on a DJ Z-Trip song than the other way around.
Thankfully, the rest of Autoimmune is mostly instrumental, save the random odd vocal sample or quick bit of rapping, and is damn good. MBM have run the gamut in their career, covering just about every sub-genre that electronic music has to offer, from drum & bass to acid-house techno. This time around, they’re back to their old stomping grounds of IDM (Intelligent Dance Music) and employ wacked-out breakbeats, creepy samples, and just about every other trick in the book to create a sound that in the spectrum of pop music and accessibility falls somewhere in between Aphex Twin and Leftfield. It won’t annoy everyone who isn’t “ready” to listen to it, but it also won’t be spun at any warehouse raves anytime soon.
Once you get past the dreaded missteps early on in the record, Autoimmune recovers nicely, delivering a solid set of tunes that serves as a welcome addition to their already top-notch discography.
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