- Praise his name, hallelujah, hooray - whatever you want to say! There is a lot to be thankful for as Gothenberg's finest Swedes The Knife have finally released their latest full length LP, Shaking the Habitual, and this comes after a seven year long wait since their previous masterpiece, 2006's Silent Shout.

What a return it is, clocking in at just over an hour and a half, spanning two deliciously packed discs. Following on from the group's collaboration opera based on the life of Charles Darwin and his book The Origin of Species, many have hailed this as The Knife's return to electronic music. They are sort of half right as the album does have a number of (if not to the pop level of Deep Cuts,) electronic, even dance tracks. However, at the same time there are also experimental pieces, industrial pieces and even sound art pieces and the average track length on this record sits at about 8 plus minutes. So in a way, this album on paper is almost a way to ween out the casual pill-head dance fan that José González forced upon the band with his cover of Heartbeats.

Things start off with the first two singles A Tooth for an Eye and Full of Fire that were periodically released over the last few months in the lead up to the album. On their own they were quite challenging pieces of music, but in the context of this record they seem to be the gateway drug to the challenge. A Tooth for an Eye seems to mesh the percussion seen on Silent Shout that tracks like We Share Our Mother's Health seem to have conjured up, while also adding this inexplicably fresh sound to the mix which has this new level of aggression burning within it. And speaking of aggression, Full of Fire defies the convention of the single format, clocking in at just over nine minutes. It is a demented piece that grabs you with its drums and liquifies your brain with its final four minutes of bent synths and quick-fire samples. This coupled with its anarchist video don't make you feel like dancing or popping pills but instead make you think and this flavour continues throughout the record.

A sea of excellent tracks follow, Without You My Life Would Be Boring is a frantic electronic ditty that has Karin Dreijer Andersson's pitch-shifting madness stamped all over it, and is the closest thing to pop on the record, despite having clear influences from African tribal music, Carribean pop and even 80's disco. Then, instantly following is Wrap Your Arms Around Me which takes a lot of its cues from the world of industrial music. This wall of drums and low end synth simply hammers you as a listener, while Andersson's voice has this melancholic sound bearing an uncanny resemblance to Antony Hegarty. Then we reach the albums monster track the epic Old Dreams Waiting to be Realised which is unlike anything the group has done to date. The 'track' (Yes I am currently doing the inverted commas over radio) has more of a sound art or sound installation feel to it. It is obviously spacious, but what makes it interesting is its choice of instrumentation and manipulation which ranges from some interesting work with the Zither - a recurring instrument throughout the record, hours of electronic feedback recorded within a boiler room and even a home made instrument that consists of a bedspring and a microphone. It is a dark affair but at the same time is also a track that is very consuming and each time you play it, you will sit through its length. It also feels as if it is a continuation of Tomorrow in a Year but one that is appropriate in the context of a Knife record.

Raging Lung continues on in this style, providing a rather meditative atmosphere while still being musically challenging. While Networking is pure techno which recalls some of the bands pre-knife and Olof's more electronic ventures away from the group. Shaking even flirts with drone on two tracks Fracking Fluid Injection and Stay Out Here, that are bleak to say the least. It makes you feel like you live in a dark hole and never want to come out, and for regular listeners of these tracks - you probably do.

Shaking the Habitual is simply a modern electronic masterpiece that defies the traditions of modern electronic music, the same traditions which the group had a part in pioneering. It is so synthetic and futuristic, yet at the same time throughout it feels insanely organic, evident in the choice of instrumentation and method of recording. It is NOT a record for the casual Knife fan or your casual electro-fancier that just wants to dance and it is obvious from first listen that this is what The Knife intended: to get rid of that image and kill the leftovers that hated Tomorrow in a Year. For me, it will be the best electronic record of the year, if not record of the year. Daft Punk aint got nuthin' - even with Nile friggin' Rogers!

- Brad Armstrong.