Example

The Evolution Of Man

(Ministry of Sound)

With their shared love of dissonance and sonic extremes, dubstep and heavy rock seem like perfect bedfellows. Trading as Example, London-born producer/singer/rapper/superstar DJ Elliot Gleave makes music that embraces the first, though he's now incorporated some of the second too: main musical playmate on this fourth Example album is Blur's Graham Coxon, who adds guitar parts to four tracks, including lead single Say Nothing. On the production side, Australians Dirty South and Tommy Trash help out as do British dubstep producers Benga, Feed Me and Skream. There's room for Calvin Harris, Swedish house DJ Alesso and even indie-loving BBC Radio 1 DJ Zane Lowe, a Kiwi. An international, cross-genre flavour then. Keeping it British to the core, however, are the vocals, fuelled by Example's winning baritone voice and fluid raps. His sassy, literate, cheeky lyrics are straight out of pop's top drawer and the riffing never gets in the way of either the hands-in-the-air club anthems like Queen Of Your Dreams or the 3am introspection of songs like All My Lows and the (vaguely) philosophical title track.

Barry Didcock