(Hospital/Inertia)

Hospital Records are totally putting out some of the best drum n bass of late, period. Regardless of whether you have a penchant for hard-step, tech-step, jump up or whatever, in terms of pushing boundaries, there seems to be a great wad of quality electronic music coming out on this one London label in particular. And I say ‘electronic’ as on this fantastic debut, Cyantific have undoubtedly made a drum n bass record, but also delved off for little periods into other genres.

Lead single Ghetto Blaster features an interesting tempo shift turning it into a sort of breakbeat electro anthem, while elsewhere techno and even Miami bass seem to have been influencing factors. It’s not often you can really justify purchasing the CD of a drum n bass LP, but much like label-mate Nu Tone, these boys have released a proper and well-considered album.

Starting off with the techy Flashback, which sounds like the theme tune to a Manga orientated video game, they follow it up with the lead Ghetto Blaster and then the Don’t Follow ballad with Diane Charlemagne’s (re; Goldie’s Inner City Life) soaring vocals, before another rinse out in Cover Story, it’s a hell of a start to the disc. Later on tunes like Riviera have a definite old school feel in terms of the rolling basslines and random siren noises, while Neon Skyline sounds like some future dnb mission mixed with Prodigy or even Blackbox, what with it’s cut up 90s vocal. It goes totally old skool jungle on Little Green Men, sounding more like a Capone/Dillinja track in places than something you’d expect coming out on Hospital in 2006, but that’s why this is such a great LP; each tune could have been drafted in from somewhere else, but it just all fits in so snugly.

There’s also the beautifully menacing and surprisingly simple heavy bassline over the stuttering beat of Solar Flares, and various other moments of glory. Quite a long way ahead of the competition. Oh and the cover is a rip off of the Transformers artwork. How dnb is that?

For more info on Cyantific and Hospital Records check out http://www.hospitalrecords.com.