ALBUM REVIEW: Leftfield – This Is What We Do

Virgin Records

Released: 02.12.22

There’s something perhaps deliberately ‘up’ about the new Leftfield long player. Opening with the big beat/disco juggernaut of This Is What We Do, Leftfield stand out when choosing sounds reminiscent of the late 90s, good-time, breakbeat/funk crossover era. Funky grooves Accumulator and Pulse move Leftfield into roaring Prodigy and Flat Eric territory. 

It doesn’t all quite work however, particularly on the collaborations – Grian Chatten’s Full Way Round just about matches Death In Vegas’ mad techno lines with dark poetry, but some wonky mixes with Lemn Sissay and Earl Sixteen feel like a mismatch of interesting electronics and psychedelic narratives (or vice versa). There are moments of brilliance for sure, but it’s often when they leave it to themselves.