'But, y'know, he's entitled to his opinion. Then again, maybe all his other shirts were in the wash that day.'Д«ut doesn't all this negative press get Daley all riled? 'Nah, I'm trying to be positive about everything at the moment,' he explains, trying to be positive about everything at the moment. A friend of mine knows the journalist who wrote it, and the day after my friend read that review he said he saw the same bloke walking down Oxford Street wearing a Leftfield t-shirt! So, y'know, he can't dislike us too much. ''I've a great story about that, actually. When I tell him that itвЂ™s not awful, but hardly glowing either, he laughs dryly. 'No, I haven't read that Q review yet, but I'II read it in about a month. And there's just no getting away from it, it just doesn't sound like Leftfield.' Ouch!

By allowing themselves to be billed as the music of the future, they have nowhere to go now they sound too familiar.The future they once promised is now. In the conference room of Sony's London offices, Paul Daley is fielding the questions from yours truly, and can't resist a smirk when I ask him if he's read the two-page critique of his latest opus in Q magazine, in which the reviewer handed down a mediocre three out of five to Rhythm And Stealth, concluding that 'Leftfield have become victims of their own propaВganda. Where Leftism was expansive and grandiose, Rhythm And Stealth is taiВlored, minimal and ruthlessly effective. Standout tracks include rising London rapper Roots Manuva freestyling over the sci-fl hip-hop of Dusted, the aforementioned Phat Planet, and Africa Shox, dark and bassy, with a vocal from electro godfather Afrika Bambaataa, far removed from the horrendous torrents of sonic effluvium he's been unleashing on an unsuspecting public recently. Now, with Barnes and Daley having spent three years in the studio struggling to draw up the architectural plans for new cathedrals of sound, the result is a sequel that is as vital, relevant and challenging as its predecessor. It redrew the borders of dance music, pioneered a radical hybrid of dub, house and breaks, and threw together guest vocalВists from other musical worlds (gothic torch singer Toni Halliday, reggae toaster Earl Sixteen and ageing punk John Lydon, among others) over rhythms redolent of dub, reggae and African music.

Warranted praise indeed, for its timeless mix of ribcage-shaking dub and grandiose, futuristic techno sounds like it was made an hour ago. More recently, Leftism has been declared the GreatВest Dance Album Of All Time in a poll of top DJs.

Boney m album cover