Album Review: The Streets Computers and Blues

CD Cover of Computers and Blues by The Streets. Photo / Supplied

Rating: 3/5
Verdict: Still clever and sometimes still annoying

With his last album, Everything Is Borrowed, Brit-hop geezer Mike Skinner went a long way to redeem his reputation following the annoying and dreary mood of The Hardest Way To Make An Easy Living from 2006. It was an odd decline into musical misadventure considering the inspired and brilliantly cheeky nature of his 2002 debut Original Pirate Material and follow-up A Grand Don't Come For Free.

On fifth album Computers and Blues, he further digs himself out of his creative hole with his most varied album yet - even if it is still punctuated with occasional irritating bleeps, squelches and strobing chipmunk-style vocals. It takes in everything from 70s funk and soul (on the percussive bop of Those That Don't Know), interlude ABC is a collision between stomping two-step and dubstep, and Blip On A Screen has a lovely lackadaisical groove, with its suctioning beats and meandering sonics. Although first
single Going Through Hell, while energising, sounds like a Brit version of Kid Rock-meets-Linkin Park.

And while his rhymes aren't as consistently strong and don't raise quite as many chuckles as they used to - remember "See I reckon you're about an 8 or a 9/Maybe even 9 and a half in four beers' time" from Fit But You Know It? - Skinner's lippy schtick is still entertaining, like when he rhymes the "racket of crickets" with a "packet of biscuits" on the carefree jaunt of Roof Of Your Car.

-TimeOut