Dual Control Left or Right

• Words: Jennifer Marston
• Label: Grand Central

Genre seems both unrecognizable and pointless to debate on the debut album from Manchester duo Phil Styles and Mike Ball, though it does prompt the question of how exactly these 12 tracks fit together. Can funky jazz and brassy horns work next to sharp beats? Should soft guitar lulls criss-cross with technical scratching? Judging by the album title, maybe Left or Right means to pull in two different directions, as the technical is paired with the melodic, and traditional instruments trade off with experimental blips and tweaks. A little of this and a little of that may be inconsistent, but it makes for not too shabby of a first album.