*** The Herbaliser

VERY MERCENARY

(Ninja Tune)

London-based collective the Herbaliser stand out from their peers on London's Ninja Tune label because along with turntable wizardry they regularly employ MCs, horn riffs, and live bass. Their latest continues the Herbaliser tradition of subtle beat chemistry, fusing big-band jazz, spacious string arrangements, and chilled-out rapping from Bahamadia, the Dream Warriors, and Roots Manuva into an album that grooves like the lost Lalo Shifrin soundtrack to a b-boy James Bond flick. The spy-noir theme holds the album together until the Herbaliser's attempt at a disjointed, cut-and-paste, old-school hip-hop number ("Wall Crawling Giant Insect Breaks"), which is merely an exercise in scratching and beat juggling, or an argument in favor of finally proroguing the current '80s hip-hop nostalgia fad.

-- Michael Endelman