I seem to have spent three years of this weblog trying to think of different ways to describe ever drier beats and ever sharper synth lines: R’n’B — even British R’n’B, who’d have thought it! – just keeps getting uglier and uglier and more and more synthetik and I still love it. ‘All Over’ doesn’t get going until Lisa goes patois – her voice gets richer, gains authority, and when the chorus comes back I’m suddenly feeling it more. ‘LIIII-suh! Maffia!’ yell the throaty backups as the beat shudders and jabs in place. ‘Remember I told ya, I’m a sold-ya!’ (Oh right? So why aren’t you in Umm Qasr? The first casualty of war is metaphor.)
But it’s a good track, the best and hardest So Solo Crew yet. And it’s a wonderful pop world where we can take this kind of jitter and scrape so absolutely for granted as chart music. Long live nastiness.