Bang On! - [sic] (2012)

I can't quite get used to the name having been slimmed down from Mr. Bang On, which made more sense to me, but I'm not complaining. Mr. Bang On turned up on a CD compilation given away with Hip-Hop Connection mag back in 2008 and was as such possibly the greatest thing I've ever heard on a free compact disc stuck to a magazine cover - even taking Hansel the Unicorn's magnificent Rat Face Girl into account. The music on [sic] has evolved in the four years since the freebie, but it's of the quality I anticipated, taking cues from grime, dubstep, garage, arcade game soundcards, even seventies dub reggae, then sort of going off in its own direction at ninety miles an hour. It's a noise which, if you're in your fifties like me, doesn't even sound quite like music at first - just a throb of distorted bleeps and electronic growls bolted together. Yet after a few plays it all falls into place, almost in spite of itself, with the kind of precision orchestration that warrants the description of art; and even the fucking autotune works, which isn't something you hear every day.

Mr. Bang On himself may or may not be unique, but he doesn't really sound like anyone else I've heard - not only a relentless lyrical barrage but a relentless lyrical barrage in a Liverpool accent of such strength it could strip paint, and the lyrics wield the sort of razor wit I've come to associate with the accent. Despite my mother's side of the family hailing from Liverpool, I don't have any particular investment in the city, but I'm well-disposed towards its people based on scousers I've known and a conviction of Brookside having been the only television soap that ever mattered. [sic] is grim, gritty, and all the other stuff you would expect. It smells of chips and rain and vehicular fumes, but it's funny, emotionally powerful, and free of any of the customary rap grandstanding. It doesn't sound like soul music, and yet that's exactly what it is. With twelve years having passed, I'm not sure that second album is going to happen but, to be fair, there's a lot to digest on this one.