Punkara

Agit-prop veterans return, with help from Iggy and Eugene Hutz. One part incendiary punk-rap outfit, one part money-where-your-mouth-is community project, Asian Dub Foundation return with heavyweight lyrics and electronics that compete tooth-and-nail in the urgency stakes. Out in Japan for the best part of half a year, Punkara is finally getting a hearing in this part of the world – and sharing a label with Carla Bruni, no less.
Needless to say, that’s where the Sarkozy link ends. “Get ready for a new kind of riot” and “climb onboard the mothership Revolution,” urges ‘Burning Fence’, and indeed there’s barely a mellow moment on the whole record. Some neat orchestrals appear now and then (especially ‘Living Under The Radar’) but never quite manage to subdue the belligerent mood. The trademark eastern-sounding scales (see ‘Speed Of Light’) and leaden bass prevail throughout.
By and large, it’s the collaborations that change the standard ADF angle of attack: that’s Eugene Hutz from Gogol Bordello on ‘S.O.C.A’ and Iggy Pop on an eye-opening cover of ‘No Fun’, which is exactly how you’d imagine The Stooges mixed with ADF would sound: bongos punctuate Iggy’s drawl as rap asides break out left, right and centre.
Iggy aside, ‘Altered Statesman’ is perhaps the most accessible moment of the record, a catchy rap that seems to put all the pieces together: angry, but well controlled. Have they overhauled the blueprint significantly since 2000’s breakthrough Community Music, let alone last year’s Greatest Hits? No. Does this matter? Strangely not. With the confrontation level turned up to '11' as per usual there seems to be little reason to change from the staple diet of propaganda and ear-splitting thunder. Truth be told, the ADF agenda is as relevant as ever, with the position of British Asians a constant thread in debates over terrorism and the war on terror, gangs, knife crime and the spectre of the BNP.
Key track: ‘Burning Fence’