Alabama 3

South London’s beloved roots-futurists Alabama 3, as much as any of us these past couple of years, have been through a trial by ordeal. Like the true people’s champs that they are, they’ve not just survived it, but emerged stronger, and even wiser, with a new album, ‘Step 13’, which refuses to wallow in self-pity. Instead, the war-torn Brixton collective triumph according to their own peerless standards of cross-pollinating experimentation, street polemic and Class-A weirdness.

Still adored the world over for 1997’s inaugural smash ‘Woke Up This Morning’, whose marriage of Howlin’ Wolf samples and trip hop beats provided the theme music for long-running HBO series ‘The Sopranos’, Alabama 3 have continued to explore their uniquely British absurdist twist on Americana, riven by post-rave aesthetics, savage socio-political satire and lowlife narcotic misadventure.