Saul Williams - The Inevitable Rise and Fall of Niggy Tardust

Saul Williams' third full-length LP, released via online distributor Musicane, is a collaboration with Nine Inch Nails producer/frontman Trent Reznor. Williams has never trodden the same path as his fellow MCs; more of a poet than a hip-hop traditionalist, his production choices have often run to hard and off-kilter beats. Working with Reznor provides a few moments of inspired fusion - The Ritual marries a restrained industrial/electro beat to militant couplets, No One Ever Does links Reznor's trademark muted pianos to a gently sung refrain, while the magnificent Tr(n)igger loops shards of Public Enemy's Welcome To The Terrordome to an appropriately rabble-rousing rap. Although lacking both the philosophical bite of Williams' previous work and the focused intensity of Reznor's recent Year Zero opus, Niggy Tardust hangs together well - a fascinating soundclash of dark industrial beats and conscious rap. The feeling that Williams' lyrical concerns might alienate NIN fans, and that Reznor's walls of guitar noise might overwhelm Williams' hip-hop headz is perhaps the point - the two styles grind and bump against each other like mismatched dancers, refusing to be confined by listeners' expectations. As rewarding as it is challenging, the album only really falls down on its spurious cover of U2's Sunday Bloody Sunday. [Bram Gieben]