'I Feel It All': A Week with Rudimental's 'Home'

There is not much else in this world that I enjoy more than really good electronic music. Whether it's Kraftwerk, Daft Punk, Burial, Aphex Twin, or The Knife, something about electronic music has really always appealed to me. A lot of it may have to do with growing up in Asia in 90's where techno was playing just about everywhere you went. Whether in bowling alleys, malls, markets or taxi cabs, electronic dance music was omnipresent. From my younger years through today, electronic music and I have had an ongoing and burgeoning relationship and I'm always excited to see what is coming down the pipe next as the genre continues to evolve and change. 

When I first heard Rudimental's single, Feel the Love (a number 1 hit in the UK) late last year I was immediately hooked and excited for what they might offer next. But life happens and over time I forgot about Feel the Love and their following debut album until the nominees for this year's Mercury Prize were released. Rudimental's debut 'Home' was on the short-list and I thought that now would be a perfect opportunity to give the record a week (and 16 complete listens) of my time.

Rudimental are a drum and bass electronic outfit from London consisting of four members (Piers Agget, Kesi Dryden, Amir Amor, DJ Locksmith) all sharing songwriting/producing duties. They've said in interviews that they want to give anthems to their generation that celebrate who they are and the times they live in. 'Home' lives up to this statement by providing a sort of melting pot of popular trends in both pop and electronic music. Everything from dubstep warbles, to soulful vocals, to ernest lyrics, to group-sing-along chorus, and a reclamation of 90's R&B stylings and melodies can be found on this record. Rudimental wants to cram everything that they love about music onto one record and when it works it truly is a thing of beauty.

Rudimental do a lot of things right on this record. Rock solid production values are found on every track. The bass rumbles and the melodies soar; everything sounds great. Along with grabbing stylistic hints of this and that from popular electronic music, Rudimental brings their own unique flavor by adding horns to many of the tracks. From vocal accompaniment to trumpet solos, horns play a big role in making this record something new; they provide an extra edge to tracks like Feel the Love that really sets them apart. The vocal performances on the record are also excellent without a real misstep in the bunch. 'Home' does a wonderful job of pairing up-and-coming pop vocalists with tracks that really show off their strengths as singers. Rudimental balances all of these elements quite well from track to track, especially considering that this is their debut outing.

Stand-out tracks like Spoons and Baby feature inventive production (with Spoons featuring actual spoons forming the basis of the track), excellent silky-smooth R&B vocals from guest MNEK, and solid songwriting representing what is wonderful about groups like Rudimental. Waiting All Night (also a number 1 single in UK) is another high watermark for me. Its skittering beat and passionate vocals from Ella Eyre energize the track and keep it engaging for five minutes, which is no mean feat. An infectious exuberance permeates these energetic songs and makes them impossible not to enjoy and get caught up in. Rudimental are passionate about their craft and their energy is palpable in these tracks.

As with many records, 'Home' contains a few tracks where the grand synthesis of styles and ideas that Rudimental strives for doesn't quite gel. Hell Could Freeze contains a wonderful chorus, but the rapped verses feel disjointed; almost as though they belong to another song. More Than Anything suffers from a similar problem, its wonderfully-power-ballady-rock-your-socks-off chorus makes the verses that precede and follow seem like a bit of a letdown. While Not Giving In sounds like Rudimental treading water; ticking the boxes and painting-by-numbers but not really capitalizing on some of the ideas or vocal talent present in the song. None of these tracks are bad or even necessarily weak, but Rudimental could have done more with them to give them that extra zing! They could have been essential to the album rather than pleasant scenery along the way.

Needless to say, I'm excited for where Rudimental goes next. 'Home' proves that they have something to say and some exciting ways of saying it. If you have any interest at all in electronic-pop, I highly recommend giving Rudimental a whirl. Hopefully by the time album number two rolls around they will have been able to really pin down what makes them unique in the pop-electronic world (horns, excellent guest vocalists, exuberant production) and play to those strengths. For now we have 'Home', a perfectly delightful debut record that serves up the pop-electronic-R&B goods while showing ample room for growth and exploration in the future. Here's to a long and prosperous future.

The Breakdown:
Stand-Outs: Feel the Love, Spoons, Baby, Waiting All Night
Let-Downs: Hell Could Freeze, Not Giving In
Rating: 8/10

Up Next: I'm diving this week into another genre that I've never really (seriously) given the time of day: jazz (expect, you know, when eating at Panera). I thought I would select what is widely regarded to be one of the best jazz albums of all time: John Coltrane's 1965 LP 'A Love Supreme'.