Pressure Point

Where "We Rock Hard" had a few anthems - featuring appearances from Tenor Fly, MC Navigator and Definition of Sound - and the rest of the album essentially as instrumental workouts which, although they worked well as club tracks, fell down as listening, "Pressure Point" has learned from this mistake. Here, Tenor Fly has four appearances ("Weekend Song", "London Sound", "Phenomenon One" and "Signs" with Spanner Banner"), and Navigator clocks in with three ("Bad Boy Love", "Get Down Massive" and "Rumours of War"). As well as this, female vocals are provided by Petra and Valerie M - both of whom hold up their end of the bargain very well - and a surprising freestyle from Justin Warfield sets off "Broadcast Channels".

Thus, "Pressure Point" has many more vocal offerings than its predecessor. This is a considerable advantage as many of "We Rock Hard"'s instrumentals seemed tailor-made for a vocalist, and yet none were forthcoming. On "Pressure Point", the instrumentals are as high quality as they ever have been, they just happen to have vocals over them as well.

And what vocals! Navigator's tongue seemed elastic enough on his "We Rock Hard" tracks, but the interval between Freestylers albums has seen him grow considerably as an artist. His razor-sharp narrative skills are demonstrated on "Bad Boy Love" and then come "Get Down Massive" and "Rumours of War". "Get Down Massive" is clearly one of the prospective anthems from the disc - Navigator flows like an old hand over this party-oriented track, blending just enough hip-hop into his ragga style. He then follows up with a spell-binding performance on the reflective "Rumours of War", he is almost two different performers during the track - the singer of smooth contemporary reggae and the acid-tongued DJ. Somehow he is capable of bringing the trick off, and the album is much the stronger for it.

Tenor Fly is also back with a vengeance. My one criticism of his role on "We Rock Hard" was that he might have been slightly under-utilised. Certainly there is no chance of that being true here. "London Sound" and "Phenomenon One" are incredible performances of what we've all known he's capable of producing, while "Weekend Song" sees him much looser than normal, a great benefit to the track. His performance on "Signs" is worthy of considerable plaudits as well. Performing the "ruff" role to Spanner Banner (Pliers' brother, for those for whom that means anything)'s smooth, Tenor delivers a highly conscious performance and one with distinguishable lyrics - a rarity in contemporary reggae.

The backing tracks and instrumentals, as previously mentioned, are top notch as we have come to expect from the Freestylers. Of particular note are the appearances of "This or That" (the Black Sheep classic) in "Phenomenon One" and "Armagideon Time" as the riddim for "Signs". These samplings demonstrate that not only are the Freestylers conscious of their roots in the electro scene - roots often given nods to with vocoder vocals at the most unexpected times - but also those in the broader spectrum of hip-hop or reggae.

Overall, a very strong outing indeed by a group to watch in the future. This album may turn out, over time, to be a "poppier" version of the Freestylers sound - containing as it does so many vocalists - as opposed to the more break-heavy "We Rock Hard". Regardless, both albums are worthy inclusions in anyone's collection - this one in particular.