Meat Beat Manifesto

August 29 - September 5, 1 9 9 6 [Off the Record]

**1/2 Meat Beat Manifesto

SUBLIMINAL SANDWICH

(Nothing/Interscope)
Ranging from groove-heavy jungle and dub to spacy atmospherics, Meat Beat Manifesto's latest offers 70-plus minutes of club dance music. Less heavy on the austere, '80s-era industrial mix than former efforts, this double-CD set offers a stimulating array of pre-recorded borrowings from innumerable sources. Although somewhat predictable samples -- "ethnic" instruments, professorial spoken-word drop-ins -- provide the means, the end still waxes engagingly provocative in both a heady and a hip-swaying sense. Insidiously catchy use of the words "asbestos," "lead," and "cancer" forms a peculiarly clever watermark, where the notion of reveling to the sound of the Apocalypse -- a common theme in the genre -- subtly sets in, so as not to bludgeon listeners with an obvious political agenda. Punctuated by some compact "singles," the seamless beat progression moves effortlessly through a solid sampling of contemporary techno and old-style acid house, affecting both a glimpse into now and a retrospective on the career of one of club music's stalwarts.
-- Chesley Hicks