Cloud Seed

I’m still not sure quite how they did it, but with Cloud Seed Vex’d have made a tight, fully-realized sequel to their incredible debut.

While Untrue represented the view from a South London nightbus window, Cloud Seed takes the same route through tower blocks and cold concrete ravaged by a chilling nuclear winter, at points orchestral to the point of classically trained compositions.

Aggressive and haunting, Jamie Vex'd makes post-dubstep dance music that could soundtrack dystopian Hollywood sci-fi films.

While this is a collection of essentially unfinished tracks, left on the shelf since 2007 after the duo dissolved and went their separate ways, it rarely feels that way.

It may not be exactly fun, but Cloud Seed is consistently interesting.

An unsettling follow-up to their skull-shattering debut.

Much softer. Much dubbier. Still seriously, seriously good.

Scraped-together compilations are never going to be the most coherent of releases anyway, but Cloud Seed is incongruous right down to its bones.

Cloud Seed, while containing great moments, is not congruent enough with the dynamic of Degenerate to be a proper follow-up and not distinctly weird enough to stand out on its own despite this.