Partnership of Sound - Four Years Later

Mr Clutch and Lawds, along with MC Redeem, deliver smooth monologues, focusing on abstract images and half-rhyme word trickery rather than the 'moon-June-spoon' grunts of thug rap.

Album Review by Liam Arnold | 10 Feb 2007
Album title: Four Years Later
Artist: Partnership of Sound
Label: Elplays Entertainment
Four Years Later is the much-anticipated debut cut from both Partnership of Sound (POS) and the Elplays Entertainment label, a carefully honed album that belies the inexperience of its creators. The production of MC/Producers Lawds and Mr Clutch is an incredibly commercial (but technically impressive) blend of horns, funk and polished percussion reminiscent of MC Solaar. With an endearingly English lexicon and London-tinged vocal delivery, Mr Clutch and Lawds, along with MC Redeem, deliver smooth monologues, focusing on abstract images and half-rhyme word-trickery rather than the 'moon-June-spoon' grunts of thug rap. When they do bust out couplets, however, it's as head-nodding and unashamedly catchy as an early-90s cut from Charizma or Eric B and Rakim, with 'Break' featuring Mr. Clutch claiming to be "Hell-raiser/ stun and shock like a phaser/ generation welder/ the next evolution of the inhuman race." Esoteric and enjoyable, Four Years… is an impressive body of work, but POS have only produced a stepping-stone to greatness and not yet a genuine classic. [Liam Arnold]
Release Date: Out now.