CD Reviews

 

Asian Dub Foundation

Community Music (London / Warner Music)

There should always be social comment in music. Whether you agree or disagree with the politics is immaterial. The songwriter's job is to put a point across, but around music that stands up in it's own right. Billy Bragg or Chumbawamba are fine exponents of the art; the observations are there, but steeped within great tunes.

For the Asian Dub Foundation, their commentary is harder, more direct and it screams out from a jackhammer of music. For this, their third album following the award nominated Rafi's Revenge two years ago, and after seven years together, the British Asian collective have returned with a stormer. Combining traditional Indian beats with banging banghra, drum and bass, hip-hop and dub, this CD blows your socks off. The lyrics are sharp and pointed, the rhythms full-on. 'Racism and Imperialism work in tandem / and poverty is their handmaiden' so goes Colour Line, launching a blistering attack on the IMF and World Bank; a point made far more eloquently than any scud missile. Real Great Britain takes a swipe at a 'Blairful of Thatcher / The suits have changed but the old ties survive.'

These are not knee-jerk in-your-face fashionable comments, but an extremely well presented collection of anti-racist, anti-establishment proclamations threaded through some of the brightest music this year. Comparisons are often drawn between Primal Scream and the ADF, not just as their politics are as interlinked as their musical stance, but also as they don't lose sight of the music just to make a point. Community Music makes that point most effectively, very energetically, but within some terrific tunes.