The One Hundred - Chaos + Bliss album review

It’s been a long wait for the debut album from The One Hundred. With an ever-growing fanbase built around a series of exemplary live shows, you’d have thought that the London quartet would have struck when the iron was red hot, and got Chaos + Bliss in people’s ears a while ago. You can’t help feeling that if that had been the case, this record would have made a larger impact than it might now. Because, although this is a strong debut, there are a few bands that have already began to run with the electro/metal/rap hybrid that The One Hundred trade in. Luckily for them, they do it better than most. After a promising start the album explodes into life in its second half, with the unusually rough-and-ready sounding Hand Of Science followed by the euphoric tech-hop anthem Boomtown kicking the quality up several notches. Jacob Field delivers a consistently diverse vocal performance throughout, equally adept at rapping, singing and screaming, the title track is a superb riff-driven banger, and there’s enough to suggest that next time around The One Hundred could deliver something ahead of the curve.