The Dub Pistols can rightfully claim to being entrenched within music. Each release of theirs has betrayed an ever-increasing kaleidoscope of influences, moving through ska, hip-hop, breakbeat and the smoky dub from which they pull their name. Their acid house credentials are secured too, with Barry Ashworth’s caner status rivalling the all time greats of Sven Vath, Dave Beer and the late Marc Spoon, but more importantly, showing a commitment to the club scene musically as well as it’s darker, seedier edges. Speakers and Tweeters is further testament to this, a delightfully deep and varied record which builds on the Pistols template of the past.

Opener ‘Speed of Light’ pitches Blade’s vocals against a typically sparse and mellow back-drop, ushering in the release as defiantly as subtlety can. We’re then led straight away into one of three covers propping the album up, with the Stranglers classic ‘Peaches’ seeing a rework fronted by the voices of Rodney P and Specials frontman Terry Hall. Hall’s at the helm on all three, voicing a unique rendition of Blondie’s ‘Rapture’ and more interestingly, an update to his own Specials tune ‘Gangsters’, where the panoramic observational glee of the original is replaced by a sage knowingness. Three covers would normally suggest a lack of originality at play, but whilst they firmly wear their influences on their sleeve, the Dub Pistols still manage to fuse a sound which sparkles with surprises as well as the more obvious tenets to their musical canon. ‘Mach 10’ boasts a jazzy undercurrent while ‘Closer’ punctuates a sharper electro focus, and there’s even time for emotion on ‘Something to trust’. It all adds up to a record of deft versatility and the sound, quite simply, of a group well on the top of their game.