An interesting side-step from Mothboy’s (Simon Smerdon) last expedition, The Fears – a brooding, haunting piece of dark electronica - Deviance is a more direct album, less overtly conceptual yet just as cohesive and imaginative.

Apparently mirroring Smerdon’s live performance setting, Deviance is seated directly between home listening and the dancefloor, with fast-paced beats offsetting spiky technology flourishes and riveting deep bass. Given Away is a fine example, combining the edgy ‘deviance’ of Smerdon’s previous work with his new penchant for using crisp, chopped up breaks. The barely audible jazz piano sprinkles and threatening orchestral sweeps remain a constant feature of Smerden’s sound, and Triptyeh is a fine track, showcasing his new found maturity, as trip-hop beats large over rotating jazz stabs and percussion – the production much more contemporary and cleverly realised.

Female vocals (Suzi C) erupt on Outside, the mix glistening with shadowy ripples of sound and warbling acid motifs – the whole event wallows in a stupefying, drug-induced haze. Gutter Song is another cunning effort, again, by hacking up the vocals amidst crushed jazz angles Smerdon adds to the overall feeling of chimera that runs through his work, where nothing is quite tangible, and generic truisms are merely suggested, never imposed.

However, the title track is a certainly a lot more in your face – a sort of slapdash techno workout, yet Smerdon simply can’t help himself from pausing the whole production to drop it into a black hole of mystifying surrealism. In contrast, I Can See Cities is clearer cut, with UK hip-hop artist Akira The Don delivering a menacing, starkly focused rap that fits seamlessly into the album.

The variety continues, as Selfish Plan serves up hallucinatory, battering techno, followed by the peculiar icy chill of the short instrumental, Bienambo, and the lengthy, closing - Down, an ambitious, dual layered vocal track with handclaps and fuzzy guitars, which turns into a monstrous nightmare of thematic jazz expressions and pulsing electronica – this baby has its very own heartbeat.

The Fears, almost two years ago, was a very promising debut, yet Deviance displays an artist growing at an astonishing rate whilst delivering exceptional results. A diverse, intelligent and consuming album, Deviance deserves to be right up there with the best of 2006.