Rome’s Trans Upper Egypt return with No Dub, their third album of bass driven, motorik beat fuelled jazz-punk.

The tightly compact formula for No Dub is executed with an unerring yet vibrant consistency.  Deeply resonant, infectiously repetitive dub influenced bass lines in a lock-step partnership with fluidly supple, crisply punchy drumming form the foundation.  Waves of dissonant, acid-tinged organs and flourishes of haunting brass weave their own often distinct psychedelic paths, while the spectral vocals are in part spoken word, in part chanted mantra, blurred and disembodied.

But let’s return to that rhythm section, which is utterly hypnotic.  To reduce it to metronomic feels reductive bearing in mind its fierce dexterity.  It is undoubtedly precise yet also richly detailed and textured.  There is a sense of all enveloping possession – even if you wanted to escape, you wouldn’t be able to break the trance, your body jerking in syncopated unison, gripped by the inexorable rhythms.

In many respects, the album is best understood as a single movement defined by subtle variations on a single unifying, mesmerising theme.  Quite simply, from the opening one-two of 33 and Benghe (Good Luck), it does not let go even for a second, not least on the brilliantly expansive Itali (Italians).  And the artwork finishes things off perfectly – after all, who doesn’t love a young caiman crocodile?