Herbaliser is the most hip-hop of the Ninja Tune lot, and previous releases (such as
Remedies and the New and Improved EP) have illustrated a knack for filling out the jazz and funk roots of hip-hop while remaining both deep and kicking.
Blow Your Headphones ups the ante considerably, with a nonstop soul-drop that pushes the beats even further forward and thins the extraneous samples and genre-references. The result is less differentiable from straight-ahead hip-hop (save for the fact the album's mostly instrumental), but is also less derivative of acid and soul jazz, a connection that tended to mar their previous work. ~ Sean Cooper