Six Million Ways to Live

Problem is is a great song, as is Official Chemical & Six Million Ways to Live, but the standout track for me is Soldiers. The combination of the lyrics & the plaintiff sound of the horns is very seductive: it's an absolute stunner.

Dub Pistols are back with this their long awaited second album and it was well worth the wait!.The pistols are fusing dub and hip hop and pushing the boundaries once again,this time they hook up with Terry Hall from the Specials,Horace Andy from Massive Attack,Planet Asia and Sight beyond Light.Stand out tracks for me are 'Problem is','Six million ways to live' and 'World gone crazy' although my favourites change daily the more i listen .I cannot rate this album any higher,miss this at your peril,this is an absolutely mind blowing album! and no doubt the source of many massive future hits.The pistols are back and they mean buisiness.

So... you're here and you're reading these reviews; I guess you obviously have an interest in the Dub Pistols.
You've either heard a soundbite from this album, and want to check it out, or you're here - like me - 'cos you've heard/have got/enjoy the previous 'Pistols long-player "Point Blank" or some of the stuff from it.
So - enough of the obvious - what's it going to be then, eh?
...An overjoyed, ecstatic diatribe about the thumping, terrific tunes within "Six Million Ways To Live", or a dismally disappointed dialogue describing the let-down expectations after finally getting to hear the new effort? Well, the answer is - a little of both, if the truth be told.
In order to explain the disappointment, one has to briefly outline the expectation.
The musical dilettante who happens here and is perchance reading these words should know that I really do love the last album "Point Blank". So much so that it had permanent status in my CD-alarm clock for 6 months; each day I'd wake up to "...THESE are the thrillseekers - corrupt, and immoral..." as the deliriously deranged and frantically funky urban beats of "Cyclone" dragged me out of dreamland. The only problem was, I'd want to listen to all the album before finally getting up...!
So, with that in mind, it was with the greatest of anticipation that I awaited the "follow-up" album.
Now, stories abound - how true they are, I'm not sure - that "Six Million Ways To Live" has been ready for two years, and was due to be released just after 9/11, but was held back for reasons best understood by those involved.
OK, so the first decent track on the album is called "World Gone Crazy" and opens with lyrics of the kind: "submarine sinks/ Concorde falls from the sky/ the tallest building burns/ oh how the mothers they cry..." Yes, that may be harshly realistic and in one way I can understand the already frayed sensibilities of an American nation being more sensitive than 'normal', but I cannot condone or agree with politically-correct censorship, even if it is of the Stanley Kubrick, "self-imposed" kind (in relation to his own insistance on the withdrawal of his film "Clockwork Orange" after its release, due to the perceived violence outbursts it had allegedly incited in some elements of the audience). So yes, the dialogue on the album is indeed often raw, but refreshingly realist - as you can imagine, this here is no album of "empty" ballads, a-la Dido or Timberlake-Trousersnake.
And what if the stories are true - is the material old and musically stale? Not at all, it sounds deliciously fresh and lively. So what's the problem - why a mixed review?
Well, aside from the first single, "Problem Is" - which is a super ska-feel track, guest-vocalised by Terry Hall, and feels like the good-ole-days of "Ghost Town" revisited for the new milennium - there seems to be fewer instant hooks than are readily evident all the way throughout "Point Blank".
That being said - and I'm currently on my fourth listen-through, as I type - from what initially felt like a blurry somewhat mis-directed mish-mash of breakbeat urban funk-rap, now emerges several catchy rhythmical routines that infect ones feet and get those toes a-tappin after all!
Yes indeedy, "Problem Is", "Six Million Ways To Live", "Soldiers", "Architect" and "Official Chemical" are made of "the right stuff", and the Pistols-friendly open minded muso (and you must be an open-minded listener to be here, on this page!) will soon no doubt succumb to the remainder of the album, as I find myself doing, after a couple of listens.
To sum up, then: if in doubt, just buy the album, loosen up and feel the inner-city funk mess widya mind!
World domination awaits...
...from Fresno County to Brooklyn.