Angels follows the bossy beats of Dancehall Thrilla/Up for the Possee, and is taken from an album called Back Up, Coming Through...meaning Annand and Fleming are due to turn their attentions to the pop chart, yes? No lie: classy sax, withdrawn keys and guitar, high-class string sections including a plucking good bubble-up segment, plenty of time to collect thoughts and take stock...the turbo has definitely been removed from the D&W machine, instead optimising their own R&B run-out so the bucking drum pads within stay marginalised. Regular collaborator and firework lighter Yolanda is again on board, adopting similar soul siren employment as to what she undertook on Breaks Beats and Blondes alongside a Cee-Lo-themed vocal. It doesn’t really suit the pair because you want them in full flight going berserk, although nowadays such a mature side is as important as readying a trademark set of tools. It would hold its own in the top 40, although decide for yourself whether that’s because of its strengths or because of the hit parade being a big bag of pigswill.
The vocal gathers depth – maybe even being better suited - on MJ Cole’s 2-stepper, a real peak era Matt Coleman production of garage silk and grace for gold card membership holders always keeping an eye on the bar’s most expensive vintage. The same vocal gets overwhelmed by big room tribal house from DJ Bomba lobbing another reasonably-sized spanner in the works; a sizeable sweat-sustaining chugger packing a euphoric electro spindle on the breakdown serves a rumbling pause-free purpose, though tis a bit of a sore thumb in the package’s standing also offering a NAPT mix for owners of eagle eyes.
More of the duo’s optimum action-stuffed break beating is saved for Baila Baila featuring ragga spittle from Stereo Type. The Latin guitar involved sounds on loan from a cheap and cheerful Spanish sound library, but Deekline and Wizard rapidly reduce it to smithereens, going about their usual route of bashing in the brains of alien baddies to get you chanting ‘Go Speed Racer Go!’. That’s synths gobbling power-ups, strings this time shaping space odysseys and buckwild bass at its most ravenous – in other words, the staple D&W diet giving flesh to the bones of the headline track that offers affection, whether it’s right or wrong.