Arrested Development Since The Last Time
|
|
|
|
Reviews Hip Hop and RnB
|
|
Saturday, 30 December 2006 |
  'Since The Last Time' begins with the question “what you been up to; it's been so long since we heard from you folks on wax?”. While the honest answer to this query – judging by the content of this album - would be “we've been struggling to find a commercially successful common ground between the Black Eyed Peas and Andre 3000's 'The Love Below'”, Arrested Development decide to go with the more ominous, “we have been a thousand places, seen a million faces”.
However, despite their decade of travelling and socialising, 'Since The Last Time' does little to prove that the group have matured or become more focused than the last time we heard from them. Ironically, despite both their reputation as a 'positive' Hip Hop act and the uplifting, sun-drenched beats that make up this album, there is actually a great deal of negativity on this record. Speech (AD's main MC) makes it clear on the title track that the group felt “jaded from the industry's jabs”, “a little slower” and even “thrown out like Woody in Toy Story 2”. Furthermore, on 'Sunshine', he berates himself for getting together with a white female fan – who he “had to admit had a beautiful smile”, claiming, “I was feeling like I just betrayed all of my kind”. Surely this kind of statement is much more potentially harmful than any Comic Book 'blood n' guts' scenario that 50 Cent might come out with?
While positive messages do sit alongside the negative in both these tracks, and throughout the album, you can't help feeling that the kind of sunny optimism and originality that brought Arrested Development into the public eye in the first place has been watered down somewhat. The fact is, that in the “ten years since they blessed stages together” the only way in which they have changed, musically speaking, is to become a little less creative (Outkast's 'Hey Ya' was clearly a big influence on 'Down & Dirty') and a little more bitter and, surprisingly enough, these new traits don't make for a truly great record.
Rating: 2/5
Label: Edel
Words: Tom Ellen
User reviews
There are no user reviews for this item.
Add new review
|
