Labrinth, aka Timothy McKenzie is a singer-songwriter and record producer from Hackney. Ordinarily it takes me a while to get into songs by Labrinth, however once I do I am unashamedly hooked. ‘Last Time’ is from Labrinth’s debut album Electronic Earth. On first listen to ‘last time’ I anticipated a song with thumping beats and a force strong enough to bring anyone to the dance floor, reminiscent of Labrinth’s previous hit ‘Earthquake’, so when I listened to ‘last time’ I was a little disappointed. The song seems to be a typical pop/rap song  and the vocals sound quite a bit like Chris Brown, nothing very original. The lyrics are simple and light hearted but the catchy riff really holds this song together.

Until I saw the video I was very unimpressed with this song, however whilst it’s not normally a good sign when a music video evokes more of a positive reaction than the song it is meant to support, I think the video made my appreciation for this song grow. With the premise of a sci-fi childhood dream, classic looking aliens with tails and albeit bad CGI affects appear. From then on it gets more freaky, featuring elephants on a trampoline, a flying pig, rainbow-coloured brick road to name a few and a personal favourite of a choreographed alien dance. This concept of ‘out of this world’ helps to make sense of the heavy electro and classic vocoder used in ‘Last Time’.

I am still waiting to see if ‘last time’ will have the same energy as Labyrinth’s previous songs. ‘Last Time’ will be available to download in the UK from March 18, so if this song strangely begins to get better with every listen and its layers gradually unfold it may be worth a buy. Labrinth tends to just grows on you I guess.

Bailey Johnson

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