The incredible new album from Benefits out March 21st.

Benefits first album ‘Nails’ was immense, but the musical equivalent of watching a Gasper Noé film. You get it is fantastic art, but it is so utterly relentless you can barely get through it, on each listen I wanted to have a two hour lie down in a dark room afterwards. It was at times aurally like nails down a blackboard. It matched the horror of the crapness of modern life, but it wasn’t something you could share with too many others. You could spot another Benefit’s fan by that thousand yard stare in their eyes, gently muttering, ‘The horror, the horror’ like Kurtz in Apocalypse Now.

Whilst Constant Noise is not a complete removal from their modus operandi it is a very significant evolution, and more effective because of it. There are a lot more tunes and beats, substantially less screaming and discordance. The message still shines out but the music complements it this time around, uplifts it and makes it more digestible for a wider crowd.

Title track ‘Constant Noise’ kicks of the new-found stylings with almost Sigur Ros like backing, gentle synths, tonal choral droning sounds that makes the lyrics zing even harder. “I am looking up in awe at a mountain of shit… What will I be required to hate today?” The tonal droning reappears in other places, most noticeably ‘The Brambles,’ the thoughtful closing reflection mirroring the ‘Constant Noise’ opening. “I feel lost, but never defeated, bruised but battling. Some days all that comes out of my mouth is air. As that euphoria disappears again it feels like a finale… The end.”

‘Land of the Tyrants’ starts like old school DJ Shadow before bringing in a stronger beat and warbling synth lines. This is Benefits you can dance to whilst nodding along to all the righteous lyrical enthusiasm and repudiation of shit Britain.

It takes until fourth track ‘Lies and Fear’ for the rattling drums and screamed lyrics that hallmarked their first album to return, but it is gone again in less than two minutes with the drums dialled down and the lyrics coming in clear above them. ‘Terror Forever’ also feels like a callback. ‘Lies and Fear’ goes into the five minutes of ‘Missiles’ which manages a kind of existential dread with a low-level John Carpenter score accompanying it. The lyrical content hits with far more intensity than their earlier efforts and without being so in your face about the horror of it all. “A man on the TV says missiles are firing… Alerts on the phone, a few more hundred dead.”

‘Blame’ starts with the tapping of a keyboard warrior hitting at letters, before finding a pounding beat reminiscent of Underworld. Shakk, a rapper and presenter for BBC Introducing in the Nort East, brings a great guest spot to single ‘Divide.’ This and Pete Doherty’s turn on ‘Relentless’ help mix things up and bring range and diversity to proceedings. Doherty popping up at the end of the single to mumble almost incoherently, bringing a feeling of paranoia.

There is some in common with the poetry/rap of Antony Szmierek yet ‘Constant Noise’ manages to stay varied and interesting, affecting and powerful, in a way the slightly more dance friendly Szmierek’s effort fell a little flat and one-note for me. I am a huge fan of Sleaford Mods and this is more like the anger and fury that they bring to dissecting modern life – if Jason Williamson and Andrew Fearn were pumped full of downers and asked to produce a soundtrack for a wake. That might not sound like a fun-time, but ‘Constant Noise’ is a fantastic listen, commanding your attention and your respect nearly all of the time. ‘Continual’ is the only slightly weaker link.

‘Dancing on the Tables’ turns a discordant fuzz into an almost funk groove, carried by the low bass waves and the tinny drum pad beats. Amongst the suspicion and disgust ‘Everything is Going To Be Alright’ brings a more upbeat note amongst the observations of the everyday. Having spoken, screamed, kind of rapped, kind of kept to the beat closing track ‘Burnt Out Family Home’ finds Kingsley Hall coming closest to full on singing, though it is more of a funeral dirge than a happy warble.

I have been listening to this album over and over during the last couple of weeks. It is an absolutely essential treatise on modern Britain. It is a survival manifesto, a call to arms, a reminder to find some peace and calm amongst the constant horror of the recent news cycles. It revels in the minute but catches glimpses of the profound. I absolutely love it and cannot wait for their appearance in Reading at the Are You Listening? Festival in May. It will take some fantastic releases to stop this ending up in my top five albums of this year.