After 2005's underwhelming You Can't Imagine How Much Fun Were Having and a string of EP's last year that were definitely for diehard fans only, I was strongly coming to the consideration that Atmosphere were through trying to impress a new array of fans and mostly resting on their laurels but their new record If Life Gives You Lemons is proof that I was sorely mistaken.

There's no doubt that rhyme master Slug and beat maker Ant are great at what they do respectively, but I've never had more respect for them than the work here on this new record. Instead of sticking with the same old style lazy beats, Ant has live musical interpretation throughout here with the most minimal amount of beats ever on an Atmosphere album. Live piano (not piano samples), flutes and acoustic guitar are just a smidgen of some of the music that Ant adds to his beats here and the album just has a fresh feel to it that seemed to be lacking over the last few records. And lets not forget about Slug. His rhymes here are completely fluid and lacking pretension. His stories about mamas working full time and going to night school, skinny white pimps and even a tribute song to his father are all some of the most top notch work he's ever been a part of. If you're like me and felt that Atmosphere were giving us lemons with their string of releases the last few years, this will certainly be the album that proves they've still got some pucker.