MELT YOURSELF DOWN

Pray For Me I Don’t Fit In (Decca)

A welcome return for jazz/dance/punk/kitchen sink experimentalists Melt Yourself Down. For their fourth studio album, Pray For Me I Don’t Fit In, they’ve stuck with their intoxicating blend but with a harder electronic edge and an even heavier feel.

Coming off like the soundtrack to an unmade cyberpunk film, Pray For Me I Don’t Fit In hones the propulsive rhythmic core of their previous recordings to an elegantly aggressive knife-edged precision. Intelligent production gives the densely layered elements a space of their own while creating a tangled, thicket-like effect that simulates what it might feel like to be concussed by a saxophone solo or have your legs knocked out from under you by a bassline. It’s the closest Melt Yourself Down have come on record to recreating the unhinged abandon of their exuberant live performances.

Fast and thuggish, high on a mix of uncertainty and freedom, it’s an exhilarating night ride through a postmodern metropolis streaked with rain and lit by neon in the colours of the future.

words DAVID GRIFFITHS