The Work Related Illness

Virus Syndicate | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (June 28, 2005)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Planet Mu
• ASIN: B0009F448K
• In-Print Editions: Audio CD  |  Vinyl  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #808,404 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

In 2005, when this album was originally issued, grime was still a pretty new development on the international hip-hop scene. Manchester's four-man Virus Syndicate came with an alternately sharp and willfully stupid attitude, a blistering flow, and an unabashedly regional accent, and their debut was quite impressive. Grime has its limitations, of course, and it would be silly to call Work Related Illness anything other than a genre exercise: the lurching, off-balance beats, the horror-show samples, and the often chaotic mixes make this album both a frequently queasy pleasure and a complete product of its time and place. The wide-open spaces and dubwise basslines of "Karma" and "Wasted" expose the dancehall reggae roots of the grime genre (as do, unfortunately, the sometimes puerile lyrics), while the brilliant "Get Money" brings in more interesting and funky rhythmic variations and a more urgent and energetic vibe. But it's the album's opening track that really exposes this crew's depth of talent: "Slow Down" is simultaneously sludgy and menacing, and yet strangely hooky and compelling at the same time. Though it's now something of a historical document, Work Related Illness is much more than that as well. ~ Rick Anderson, Rovi --This text refers to an alternate Audio CD edition.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Igloo Magazine's REVIEW, December 1, 2005

By 

Pietro Da Sacco - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Work Related Illness (Audio CD)

REVIEW BY: Luca Maini at igloomag.com
(09.18.05) After a glimpse of their vocal skills on Mark One's One Way, Virus Syndicate are back with a full album. Some friends of mine who never liked hip-hop find MC's boring, but I thought that those vocal tracks were very effective, especially "Ready For It" with the infamous line "get ready for the sickness." This time Mark One keeps the production even more minimal, the beats are punching but without any kind of percussion, and the samples are kept to a few instantaneous riffs. Very simple --but it works. Take for example the bouncy break and the funky sax of "Clockwork" and you get an instant tune. The oriental mood of "Throwing In The Towel" and "Karma" underlines very well both the beats and the MC's. Oh, and obviously there's loads of bass everywhere, it's grime after all.

The bassline of "Wasted" is huge, yet is perfectly tuned with the chorus, giving rise to one of the best tracks of the album. The lyrics are a bit a matter of taste I suppose, they're distant light years from 50 Cent, even if they talk about girls, money and parties --it's a very different attitude, at least from what I can understand because of the very weird accent. Personally, I really enjoy the anti-drugs lyrics of "Nadine" and the self-explicative "Get Money," but maybe a hip-hop expert (i.e. not me) could be more critical. You know what you get here, if you are an MC hater don't even try to listen to this and turn to Vex'd instead, otherwise The Work Related Illness is surely a fresh, entertaining record.

The Work Related Illness is out now on Planet-Mu.