Uyai

The UK-based band fronted by British-Nigerian vocalist Eno Williams continue from where they left off – with confidence and swagger – on this, their second album. There has been much talk of an African highlife and Afrobeat influence on their music, but rather bizarrely what mostly springs to mind on hearing opening number ‘Give Me a Reason’ is Gary Numan. The oft-repeated descending synth motif is pure ‘Are ‘Friends’ Electric?’ in its eerie futurism. There’s also a little Off the Wall-era Michael Jackson and Remain in Light-era Talking Heads in there somewhere, which is all good, of course. Such diverse influences inject an edge less apparent on the first album. Solid muscular grooves are filled out by intricate percussion, storming distorted guitar, stabs of brass and bubbling bass while Ms Williams’ Grace Jones-like capacity for authoritative hollering and rabble-rousing – some of it in the Ibibio language, some in English – continues to be the perfect foil for a band this diamond-hard and fiercely funky. Wonderfully attention-demanding stuff.