The Heavy - Great Vengeance and Furious Fire

This is a combination that, on paper, just shouldn't work. Varying elements of silky soul Stax vocals, hip-hop beats, funk brass, and a guitar sound that takes in everything from stoner metal to blues, all brewed together to sound like the bastard offspring of Gnarls Barkley and Primal Scream, but with baws, big baws. The album never really goes on to top its opening track (which has to be the most under-praised single of the year) That Kind of Man, but it's hardly a matter of paling in comparison. Effortlessly shifting genre from song to song as the mood takes them, they have a total disregard for purism that must have had marketing departments crying with the prospect of devising a target audience. Each track is a stand up smile puller and it's got more swagger than Mr Blonde. Only the closer Who Needs The Sunshine lets standards drop. [Jack McFarlane]