"The sounds you are about to hear can be devastatin' to your ear" promises a voice at the start of the second (and title) track of Luke Vibert's latest opus We Hear You.  It serves as a statement of intent for the album, no matter that he's overlooked the first track, which was devastatin' in its own way, borrowing a chunk of Kid Unknown's "Devastating Beat Creator", a single from the early (pre-Artificial Intelligence) days of Warp.  But the devastation is not wrought by the sort of OTT drum patterns that Vibert utilised as Amen Andrews, but a quietly commanding collection of tracks continuing the style he has explored since 1998's Tally Ho!

In preparation for writing this review, I fired up the iPod with a Vibert playlist, bringing together as much of his work as I had, which it turned out was a substantial amount. Although to my shame I forgot about his albums as Kerrier District and Ace of Clubs, I still managed to gather up 240 tracks which at least enabled me to see some traits of Vibert's work emerge.  These memes of his music result in two different conclusions: one, that it should be remarkably easy to spot a Luke Vibert album in a blind listening test for anyone familiar with his work.  The other is that is possible to play a game of buzz word bingo with We Hear You based on his previous output.  So things to look out for include:  a jingle from a 1960s/70s radio station.  A child (presumably a junior Vibert) offering vocal services.  A computer (probably an old Apple Mac) offering its vocal services.  A fairly obvious sample from a sci-fi show (often, but not always, Star Trek).  A bit of a hip-hop slipped in just to add a bit of edge now and again.  A reference to London.  Something cribbed from an easy listening album.  A really unsettling track title or two.

That selection is not intended to diminish Vibert's work at all, but to underline that there is frequently a humorous sparkle in the eye when he is creating tracks, which seem to have always had lighter, fun element to them compared to his peers.  Whilst his contemporaries such as Tom Jenkinson and Mike Paradinas may have had an eye for a witty title as well they seemed to take their work much more seriously - to the extent that Jenkinson now releases albums of bass solos and Paradinas runs his own (rather excellent) record label which must considerably eat into his music-making time.  Vibert has continued through all this with a lower profile and less pretensions, regularly making records that dip their toe into fresh styles alongside interchangeable work under his own name or Wagon Christ, his first solo recording identity.

The positive side of Luke Vibert's work compared to the likes of Squarepusher, µ-Ziq and his old mucker from Cornwall, Aphex Twin, is that the likes of Musipal, YosepH and now We Hear You are really consistently good albums, wrapping hook after hook around medium-tempo rhythms, squelchy basslines and jazz fusion echoing keyboard lines.  Suitable for home, or club, or for travelling between two, listening to a Luke Vibert album should result in the listener grinning madly at some point.  You just can't keep it in.  However, the up-tempo, good time vibes of a Vibert album can often lead to people dismissing it in comparison to the aforementioned artists.  There are no twelve-minute ambient pieces (Vibert exorcised those on his debut album Phat Lab. Nightmare).  There are no tracks that yell 'take me seriously' (arguably these are relegated to the Vibert/Simmonds releases on Rephlex).  There is rarely an attempt to leap on board the current sound of the month, be it dubstep or wonky.  There aren't any moments of wildly virtuoso musicianship if you don't consider the sampler an instrument - which you should.  Let's pause a moment and enjoy this incredibly awkward interview between Vibert and an Australian music presenter.

Finally, then, to the real question - is We Hear You any good?  Well, yes, it is certainly as good as most of Luke Vibert's other works, demonstrating once again his remarkable consistency of output.  There are a couple of caveats attached however.  The first is a lack of an obvious stand-out track - not, you understand, that I'm suggesting that Vibert is on the look-out for a hit single but that many of his best albums are lifted by the presence of one track that makes the listener go straight for the rewind button.  The closest here is "Arrogance", with its pseudo barber shop quartet of cooing voices, but it's no "Spotlight", no "I Love Acid", no "Lovely".

The other issue is that a track like "Battling for England" with its (sampled) refrain of "Gonna beat that bitch with a bat" is frankly uncomfortable listening.  Even if the context of 'England is a bitch', the suggestion of casual violence amidst a jaunty tune seems a bit out of step with the rest of the album.  Now, maybe I'm just being a bit too sensitive (hey, I read The Guardian!) and maybe Vibert is chucking in a few lines from rap songs to point out the violence in those lyrics which often goes without comment because, you know, we kind of expect it, but the whole track sits awkwardly in the middle of We Hear You.  In fact there are other tracks where Vibert gets a little carried away with the sampling, most notably "Computer Complex" where the recurring sample "Oh drat these computers, they're so naughty and so complex... I could pinch them" goes on and on, interrupted only by a woozy synth line.  What may have seemed a humorous line at the time of the recording is not quite so hilarious to this particular listener who found it grating first time round and it hasn't improved with repeated plays.  Maybe it's not as potentially offensive as "Battling for England", but it is still irritating.

So a couple of skippable tracks, and the lack of a real rewind moment - enough to knock a decimal point or two off the reckoning but not enough to stop it being another solid release from Luke Vibert.  What is perhaps frustrating is that in the fifteen years since his debut track, the wonderfully off-kilter and alien-sounding "Gas Fish" (credited to Wagon Christ), Vibert has not, I think, made a definitive statement in the extended format.  He has got close to it, and the potential is certainly still there, but as of We Hear You, Luke Vibert still has to release an album that is truly devastatin'.