Music > Album Reviews

A CERTAIN RATIO  - ACR : BOX

28/03/19

To celebrate 40 years, Manchester’s A Certain Ratio release ACR:BOX. Following on from last year’s (kinda) best of ACR:SET, this showcases the diversity of the singles, B-sides and alternate versions featuring over 20 unreleased tracks. 

 If you are a long standing fan of ACR, this will be manna from heaven. If you, like me, are new to ACR, this may not be the best place to start. Before listening to this, I knew a few songs but ACR had somehow not penetrated my consciousness. Having lived with this for a while, I can’t understand why. It is, at times, difficult listening and, being totally honest, there are a few tracks on here I never want to listen to again BUT when ACR get it right, it is sublime. How the hell do I describe the found? Infused with the DIY spirit of punk but definitely not punk, funky but not funk, dubby without being dub, electronic without being electronica, jazzy but not jazz… you get the idea. ACR seem to share the visionary outlook of, say, PiL or Killing Joke or the Pop Group without sounding like any of them.

 At times difficult but, also, at times, utterly brilliant. 

8/10