Evergreen soundsystem punisher from Punch Drunk & Livity Sound boss Peverelist! “Roll With The Punches” meets all my requirements for a perfect dubstep tune: sinister Far East-inspired melody, pitched square lead, sub, crunchy drums, and most importantly, dread - but not in a cartoonish, trustafarian, reggae-sampling kind of way. This might be the one dubstep track we shoot into outer space to show future civilizations what the sound was really like before festival DJs ruined it. It’s been versioned a thousand times, ingeniously by James Blake but also by Kowton, Majid Jordan and even a leaked version by DRAKE for fuck’s sake (do I betray my reverence for the tune if I say I sincerely hope the Drizzy version comes out some day?). B-side sleeper “Die Brücke” is, somehow, almost better than the A-side; an 808-heavy slice of techno-infused bass music (lowercase please), dry-rubbed with that signature dubwise Bristol grit, predating Blawan, Pangaea, and all the finest Trilogy Tapes wares by at least a half-decade. This gets repressed fairly often but never hangs around for very long, so be swift. Recommended.

• official 2018 repress
• 45RPM
• music label: Punch Drunk 2007

reviewed by tom violence 01/2019