I Am LegionI Am Legion
Via Division / Par Excellence / Neon / Warner Music Australia

- Noisia (that’s Noy-see-ah), have been just about my favourite d’n’bers in the world since their album, Split The Atom, back in 2010. Admittedly there’s not a huge amount of competition for the job, these days, and Noisia with their tech-inflected, bass-heavy sounds often aren’t even d’n’b anymore. The important point is that Noisia manage to be both ‘tech’ and ‘bass-heavy’ but also innovative and interesting, something that their similarly tech’n’bass cousins in bro-step have been failing at, epically, for years now.

The Dutch trio first got together and made some musical offspring with UK hip hop crew Foreign Beggars back in 2009 with a snappy little number called Contact. Despite a preponderance towards braggidociflow, the geezery sound of the Beggars was fast and a neat fit for Noisia’s shadowy, urban beats and if you look at the history of MCs in drum’n’bass, well, they didn’t have good role-models growing up. Two more numbers followed on Split The Album, and finally they tied the knot in 2013.

Things always start out well, with the best of intentions. There was that advance single Make Those Move which kicked along at a cracking pace. A lot of people liked that, although the Beggars’ battle-rapping was a little much for my tastes. Worse, as you listen to the album, Noisia start to slide lazily into some of the tried, tested and tired tropes of dubstep. I wonder how much of the influence can be attributed to working for Sonny Skrillex Moore on his OWSLA label? I don’t know. It is clear that this project has been excuse for Noisia to try some different things, not all of them dubstep related. The track Jellyfish with it’s wonky beats rolling jauntily along is another significant left-turn, like you were suddenly listening to Massive Attack’s Five Man Army but produced by Flylo. Foreign Beggars branch out, too: take the broken-hearts tune Ice, which feels strangely like it should have been an r’n’b anthem for Destiny’s Child.

The big single Choosing For You maximises those problematic dubstep parts. I mean, it’s still pretty banging, and The Beggar’s zombified vocals in the chorus are cool, but the recipe feels lazy. Having said which, there are some great moments on offer: Dust Descends is Noisia doing old-school neurofunk and the Beggars match the undulating rhythm with their a-game, weaving raps through like performance poetry.

There’s an instrumental version of the album dropping on the 29th of November. I was hoping that if you took out the raps, the beats might seem...smarter? Silly, In reality you just get lots of vamping. There’s a lot of bros in the world and I Am Legion has been met with a storm of public pleasure, which is why we’re getting an Australian release of this record at all, ahead of what I think is the first tour down under for either group. I hope Noisia, at least, have time to disconnect long enough from the career track to do some more of the things I really like them for.

- Chris Cobcroft.

I Am LegionI Am Legion

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