Vex’d never got to finish this album, however, when you listen to this it sounds like nothing less than a finished, darkly shining, masterpiece. It’s not as heavy as their previous effort Degenerate – yet still it is undeniably a cinematic paean to the dank bowels of London. This is no retread of Untrue though, it’s altogether more shadowy, more apocalyptic – more dramatic. Barely a shaft of brightness pierces the gloom shrouding the waves of fathomless bass – as El-P soundalike Jest intones on the supreme Disposition “I seen the sun… once”.
It is not only the bass that elevates this album amongst its peers – there is some superbly matched vocal performances too. The highlight of the whole record is Anneka’s striking input into the shifting trip of Heart Space, a tune that smudges the very definitions of the genre. There’s variety here too, from the fantastic wavering remixes of Distance’s Fallen and Plaid’s Bar Kimura through to more mechanical shards of closer Nails. The fact that most of the material that makes up Cloud Seed was produced back in 2006-7 is testament to its inventiveness, it sounds still like little else their contemporaries could or have yet produced.
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