Home > Baltimore Music > CD Review > The Herbaliser, 'Same As It Never Was'

Backstory: “Same As It Never Was” is the seventh album from this U.K. hip-hop institution, and the first since the group left London’s Ninja Tune record label, with which it had built its whole career to date.

Why you should care: U.K. hip-hop has had only middling critical success outside its home island, but the Herbaliser has long been a notable exception. And here the group expands its already expansive musical outlook, intermingling rap tunes with well-crafted turns of jazz and funk.

Verdict: Ollie Teeba and Jake Wherry, the instrumental core of the group, have always had a talent for finding great vocalists and rappers, and here they feature promising MCs from both Canada (More or Les, who kicks dizzying intelligence over accordion and tuba on “Game Set and Match”) and England (Yungun a.k.a. Essa, riding an old-school flow and thoroughly now topics over “Just Won’t Stop”). Their new permanent vocalist, London’s Jessica Darling, has great, husky pipes, which is fortunate because she appears so frequently on the album. Her most interesting turn closes the album: “Stranded On Earth,” which has no lyrics and just features her letting loose with punctuated vocal textures.

X-Factor: The Herbaliser has frequently worked with the highly underrated New York rapper Jean Grae since she went under her original stage name What What back in the ‘90s. Their newest collaboration, “Street Karma (A Cautionary Tale),” is one of this album’s highlights—trombone-led funk neatly paired with Grae’s intriguing storytelling.

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