Panjabi By Nature is about as typical as you can get for a bhangra producer. He's young, his name mimics a hip-hop star and most importantly, he loves his music. Representing Wolverhampton to the fullest, his latest album is called 'Settin' The Standard' and has been put out on local label Limitless Records.
The album gets off with a bang in the form of 'Nain Preeto De', a refix of the classic bhangra tune with Dippa Satrang on vocals. This is exactly what desi dance floors desire at the moment: strong dhol, sing-a-long choruses and loads of balle balle. One of my tunes of the year, and definitely bhangra at its best.
Track two is 'Yaare Ne Club Vich', one of those desi-turned-garage-in-a-moment tunes, where the singer starts off freshy but the beat changes and suddenly you've gone from the streets of Punjab to a club from south London. G.S. Pullar does a fine job on vocals but these tracks are getting a bit repetitive as they struggle to find top-notch garage or desi vibes.
The third tune is another refix of a classic track, this time 'Bindiya Chamke Gi' featuring Sameira Singh on vocals. Frantic Kam is on hand to provide guitar and probably much more but it's a cool track to chill out to.
'Nachdi' comes next and as the title suggests, its another to get dancing to. Sanjay Dhallwal puts in the vocals but it's the dhol that will get your feat moving. Better than average, this is better than what most albums can come up with for a fourth track.
Remember that early Rishi Rich stuff featuring Ameet Chana from Eastenders? PBN is on the emulate tip for track five, 'Ban Meri Heer' which is a soulful number as far as the singing goes but Lexeye's (c)rapping leaves much to be desired.
PBN's biggest hit to date has probably been the garage induced 'Gal Ban Gayee', and Amar Arshi's classic vocal reappears here on part two which is not too different to the original. Still the hard-hitting chords and two step beat, but now we have a tumbi over the instrumental bits. This is ok, but only because Arshi lays the lyrics down with such ascendancy.
There's more dancing to be done to the penultimate track, 'Tenu Nachdi Vekh Na'. It's not a patch on the rest of the party tracks on the album, but Lalli's vocal is all right even if the production lacks something in the middle.
We close with 'Ik Gera', a garage tune, which doesn't have anything, you've not heard before. Devinder L does his best with the vocal to make the track interesting, but his enthusiasm doesn't make this a big tune especially as the tumbi sounds a little out of tune midway through the track.
'Settin' The Standard' is a fairly accurate name for this album as its bang on par. 'Nain Preeto De' is brilliant, and there are some other good tunes on here but the album does leave holes in between the hits. PBN has had some great vocals to work with on this album and he's done ok, even if a few of them are refixes or part twos or something like that. My biggest criticism is that there is only just over half an hour of music on here, so value for money comes at a premium. This album gets 7.1 out of 10, but most of the shockwaves on your local desi dance floor will be coming from the first track on the album.
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