Chase & Status - 2 Ruff Vol.1 album review: absolutely nasty

This is a welcome return to the duo's roots
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David Smyth13 November 2023

Chase & Status themselves have already provided us with a two-word review of their latest release: “Absolutely nasty!” their MC repeated during one of the all-time great Boiler Room DJ sets recently. The Boiler Room web channel, which regularly crams more clubbers than is strictly comfortable into a tiny underground space, and then films a DJ sending them berserk, was truly incinerated by the electronic duo’s Saul Milton last month. TikTok is aflame with clips of him (appearing without his studio partner Will Kennard) cueing up their single Baddadan and delighting in the unfolding chaos.

Baddadan (as in “Nobody badder than we”) is currently on its seventh week inside the UK top 10 and an overwhelming contender for dance track of the year. The combination of the title repeated in guest vocalist Irah’s absurdly low voice, and a build-up to the unleashing of a bass synth filthy enough to be cordoned off by government health officials, has proved irresistable since the summer.

It’s the peak of a chart run that is highly unusual for a group 15 years away from their debut album. Two more of their songs currently sit in the top 25. Disconnect, sung by Becky Hill, has a slightly lighter touch and doesn’t appear on this collection. Liquor & Cigarettes is here, however, finding cheeky Brighton rapper ArrDee promising, “You’re about to have the best night of your life,” before another chainsaw bassline hoves into view.

Milton and Kennard have skated between a range of genres across their long career, sometimes at the poppier end of the scale with guests including Emeli Sandé and Tom Grennan, and sometimes so close to rock dynamics that in 2012 they starred at the metal festival Download. With their last two collections, Rtrn II Jungle and What Came Before, they mostly went back to their roots in jungle and drum and bass. “Let’s remember what it was like to make music just purely off instinct,” Kennard said recently. Here, the breakbeats never rest and the electronics consistently sound immense. On the Block on its own could solve the UK’s energy crisis. Massive & Crew sounds harsh and metallic, an attack on the senses on an industrial scale.

It obviously wasn’t intended for the pop charts, or daytime radio. They’re not even classifying this set as an album, preferring the term mixtape. These overpowering songs belong somewhere dark, with your personal space invaded, where they sound nasty but nice.

EMI

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