Salmonella Dub at the St James Theatre

Reviewed by REBECCA BARRY

When Salmonella Dub played Tha Bromley East Roller at the St James a couple of years ago, it was like a 747 taking off. That grumbling belly of a track ripped through the room with such intensity the floorboards danced, too.

On Saturday night it still rose to the occasion but the Dub's new, fifth album, One Drop East, was bowled over in the process.

The intensity was there on the haunting Slide and the drum'n'bass bluster of Octopus but the new stuff just couldn't match that of their two biggest albums, Killervision and Inside the Dub Plates.

Stripped-down drums gave the Roller new momentum while For the Love of It got up the seated lot, who had plonked themselves in the mezzanine during some of the noodly bits.

Still, those flimsier tunes were fleshed out with an almost telepathic musical empathy as the rhythm section hammed up the dynamics and plied the sell-out crowd with torrid percussion and reverb.

It reminded me I'd never seen them live during their Drunken Monkey days. Wish I had. Those haphazard bass-lines, skew-whiff melodies and oddball lyrics, while not as friendly as their obligatory romp through Dancehall Girl or Love Your Ways, were more brutish and interesting, as was their short-lived blat with members of the Black Seeds and Fat Freddy's Drop. Those guys should make an album together, or something.

Salmonella Dub had big shoes to fill of course as they were sharing the bill with four other acts. They had arrived on stage after a particularly stunning performance by Trinity Roots, whose simple grooves and tribal harmonies coruscated through the room with a vaguely middle-eastern ambience.

And even though I'd missed Verse 2, the number of overnight MCs posturing at the bar, spitting, "How many dudes you know roll like this?" made it clear Scribe had made an impression.

The perennially buoyant Black Seeds were also as snappy as ever, raising the temperature in the auditorium until the walls sweated.

Pitch Black cooled the night off, dispersing their tripped out electronica with the beguiling aimlessness of dry ice.

As for Salmonella Dub, perhaps there will be a bigger better Bromley next year.