Kwabs' Love + War album feels like it's been a long time in gestation. Perhaps that's just our impatience though, his Wrong Or Right EP only came out last year. We've been addicted ever since. One of the tracks featured on WOR, 'Spirit Fade', was produced by Dave Okumu of The Invisible - and its a relationship Kwabs revisits on album cut, 'Layback'. It would be remiss of us to say that Kwabs has grown stronger in tune with each passing track - only because his early forays sounded so unbeatably raw and powerful - but what we can say is, he's certainly grown sonically braver. 'Layback' works in all manner of ambitious instrumentation, from silken whirls of synth to churning near- trap beats, but of course, that thunderous vocal of his looms as large as ever before. Love + War is (finally) out 11th September on Atlantic. - DC