Serengeti And Polyphonic
Don’t Give Up
4.2/5

Who It’s For: Those infuriated by hip-hop’s seeming inability to challenge itself and put out fresh sounds anymore.
Sounds Like: Cleverly structured electronica with existential rapping in the background. A schizophrenic version of Roni Size’s New Forms.

Don’t Give Up sounds like the crossroads for so many different records that it’s almost impossible to work out where it comes from. Is this the Black Album of The Postal Service? Has Pharrell finally sorted his ass out Travelling Wilburys style and stuck out a phenomenon under a pseudonym? Have Warp Records just gone completely off the map? Or has Thom Yorke started fucking with Wu Tang? 

Once you get your hands on Don’t Give Up, you’ll realise this is all a little secondary to the main concern - how the hell did this find its way into the real world? From the Gym Class Hero-isms of “Puppydog Love,” the slightly MF Doom vibe on “2 Times 2,” or the Daft Punk referencing on “Waste Of Time” is what is often derisorily known as a headphones album. We are talking proper leftfield here; Serengeti’s introspective rhymes – no bitches or Cristal here – sit low in the mix, so much that the listener has to strain to catch what he has to say. Sure it can be disorientating at times, and anyone who thinks “Sexyback” is the pinnacle of electronic hip hop is going to be sick listening to Polyphonic. But this is like watching Star Wars - you find new things every time you go back to it. Probably the most anti-commercial rap album since Fear Of A Black Planet. It’s about time.

Track Listing :

1. Eleven
2. Puppydog Love
3. Lately I Haven’t Been Feeling Well
4. Slew Of Things Differently
5. Praha
6. 2 Times 2
7. Waste Of Time
8. Fear The Mimes
9. Rambo
10. Mom’s A Commie
11. Don’t Give Up
12. Sunrise

- Kid Lupin  Posted Aug. 25/07