It All Comes Down To This, Certain Ratio, LP

Vinyl LP pressing. It All Comes Down to This, for now at least, is the sound of the current incarnation of A Certain Ratio. Indeed, in many senses, it is the purest distillation of their essential sound ever committed to tape. Their thirteenth studio album, it is the first time ever they have recorded strictly as the core trio of principle band members - multi-instrumentalists Jez Kerr, Martin Moscrop and Donald Johnson. From the moment the rattling, call-to-arms drumroll intro of opener 'All Comes Down to This' gives in to a wall of slithering, watery guitar squawks and bounding, rubbery bass notes, it is obvious that A Certain Ratio have once again been able to tap into a new artery of life. The record's ten tracks present ten distinct moods, from the urgent, muscular, foreboding groove of 'Keep It Real' to the open, breezy, melodic synth of 'God Knows', every bursting moment of It All Comes Down to This is defiantly, resiliently alive.