A Certain Ratio Sheffield Leadmill

A CERTAIN RATIO

Sheffield Leadmill

IRONIC TO see a band like ACR playing in a town like Sheffield where so many hammer and tongs, fumace-fired funkateers have grown up under their influence, mentioning no names, of course. The ground is thick with students and hoppity-boppitty peak capped and fatigue'd rationarios blowing whistles with a comic ferocity.

A Certain Ratio are certainly not what they used to be. The magnificence of their red level bass lines, percussive enormity and minimal frills have been sanded down to a trim, well-oiled light engine. Out with the funk dynamo and in with the software. All the dirt, rough edges and abrasive surfaces have, unfortunately, disappeared. Even though the percussive bones still grind and snap, guitars still slice and horns punch pinholes in the rhythmic rationale, ACR wear an overall blanket sheen that smacks violently of average funk all-dayer floor-fillers. Perhaps within the context of the all-dayer circuit they'd achieve a degree of success if it weren't for the white-boys-can’t-play-real-funk inverted racism.

Consequently, ACR have descended to dragging up well-worn, assured jive numbers like 'Shack Up' as reference points. Only towards the end does some of the old fire flicker weakly as some serious drum battering takes place but otherwise ACR's banal plateau is a sad thing to witness. The boys in camouflage chic (by now probably well fatigued after all that whistle peeping) love every licking, smacking sweat sweep but Hits On 45 was never A Certain Ratio's style of yore. Definitely a bad case of one nation stuck in a groove.

Claire Morgan Jones