Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip

For such exotically named chaps, Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip’s (aka Daniel Stephens and David Peter Mead) greatest strength is a wryly unheroic approach to observational rap that shames their supposedly incisive contemporaries. Having welcomed a sardine-packed Liquid Room, they kick off with The Beat That My Heart Skipped, a sweet-natured ode to the tragic posturing of modern sexual politics and one of the highlights of their 2008 debut album, Angles, before breezing into Dizzee Rascal-sampling Fixed, a devilish deflation of self-important musician-martyrs.

Look For The Woman’s anthemic dilemma of a chorus elicits an enthusiastic singalong, matched only by Le Sac and Pip’s inter-song banter (“Some beautiful singing there, I feel like Chris Martin”), before the duo premiere material from 2010’s The Logic of Chance, which meets with an equally rapturous reception. Sick Tonight is driven by an ominously irresistible bassbeat, while Get Better’s wistful positivity plays like a social manifesto set to drums, swept along by dreamy synths. Le Sac and Pip round things off with breakthrough number, Thou Shalt Not Kill, a searing assault on everything that’s wrong in the world which still keeps afloat a characteristically catchy lightness of tone.

A blistering set coupling lyrical treatment of everything from suicide to STDs with infectious computerised melodies strongly contradicts  Mead’s closing observation that theirs is “the funniest shit band on earth”; if Fest is naming names, Dan Le Sac vs. Scroobius Pip might just be one of the most exciting.