It is one of UK bass music’s greatest tragedies that ill health has meant grime originator Terror Danjah has not been able to produce anything since this record, as it is his most coherent single body of work and showed an artist at the top of his game. Gremlinz, his 2009 compilation of early work from singles and EPs, was already a strong candidate for best instrumental grime album ever. His subsequent solo albums on Hyperdub lost focus a little, but he slyly kept putting out a steady stream of killer material on his Hardrive label right through the 2010s. Then finally, on Brighton’s Tru Thoughts, he dropped a nuclear bomb. Invasion is pure 140bpm heaters, but it delivers relentlessly. TD was never purist grime – so here there’s bashment, Coki-style scrambled egg dubstep bass, tropical house steel pans, no end of hilariously slithery trap snares, trippy techno subliminals and even metal guitars. But every part of that is there in service of the whole, pure funk, soundsystem sub-bass and his gremlin cackle holding it together. It’s the essence of big-city party music: blissed out then on edge, pensive then rowdy as hell. Incredibly, with Invasion, TD created a second very viable candidate for best grime instro album. 

– Joe Muggs