ALBUM REVIEW: The Logic of Chance by Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip

t’s been just shy of two years since Dan Le Sac and Scroobius Pip released their debut album Angles and now they’re back with the follow up – The Logic of Chance.

The major thing you notice about The Logic of Chance when you first listen to it is that it lacks the stand out tracks that grab you straight away, like Thou Shalt Always Kill, The Beat That My Heart Skipped, Fixed and… well pretty much everything else on Angles did. However that is not to say that this new record is not any good. Quite the contrary in fact – aside from the bouncy, catchy Great Britain which does have that initial impact the other tracks grow on you and reward re-listening until pretty much every song gets stuck in your head.

Musically The Logic of Chance moves away from the indie angle and sampling of Angles and instead goes in a more electronic dance-based direction and in places even veers close to drum n bass and dub-step. Whether or not this is an improvement is really down to your personal tastes but the change isn’t really so fundamental as to alienate fans of the first album.

Lyrically it is exactly what is to be expected from spoken word artist Scroobius Pip – political, observational and searching for identity. Specifically, Pip reflects on British identity more than probably anyone else around at the moment – Great Britain, Cowboi, Last Train Home and Stake A Claim all address the nature of the ever elusive British identity as well as the social and political issues of the country in stark, uncompromising terms. Whilst there is nothing quite as harrowing as Magician’s Assistant on this new album Five Minutes certainly gets under your skin and makes you think. This is especially true of my favourite lyric from the whole album – “For the good times I wish you 5 minutes in heaven before the Devil knows you’re dead”.

For all of Scroobius Pip’s musings on the darker, less attractive side of life (rape, domestic violence, knife crime, that kind of thing…) there are some fun moments too – most notably Cauliflower and Snob the latter of which has had me bouncing around and singing along with more enthusiasm each time I hear it.

Overall The Logic of Chance is a more coherent album than Angles which threw a lot of different ideas together into a fantastic but fairly random record. Whilst it may lack the initial, first listen impact the band’s debut offered, this is an album packed with great songs and demonstrates that Dan Le Sac and Scroobius Pip are constantly developing greater synergy as a duo as time goes on.

4/5


The Logic of Chance is available from March 15th. The single Get Better is available from March 1st.