Dan le Sac vs Scroobius Pip, Angles

Together, spoken-word scenester Scroobius Pip and laptop-botherer Dan le Sac layer electro with hip-hop, dissecting truths, dismantling idols and setting down 21st-century commandments in last year's single, Thou Shalt Always Kill. But in the battle between these Essex boys, it's Pip who is victorious. He is reminiscent of punk poet John Cooper Clarke, defining beauty in terms of Tommy Cooper's bungling magic and exploring the selfishness of the self-harmer's defiant autonomy. Accepting advice from celluloid antiheroes in Waiting for the Beat to Kick In, he pulls together the strands of the tragic title track with impressive empathy - despite Dan le Sac reducing a sample of Radiohead's Planet Telex to a stuttering mess. Le Sac's uninspired atmospherics blunt Pip's edge, but this is an intelligent debut that looks set to put the underground duo's credo - "Thou shalt not stop liking a band because they become popular" - to the test.