Key Príncipe unit Puto Márcio, Lycox, B.Boy and Danifox – aka Tia Maria Produções – return to the Lisbon powerhouse with six driving batida songs and club trax built to shake off worries in the dance

Six years since their formative 2014 debut, on ‘Lei Da Tia Maria’ the group rally around a need for vocals and rude grooves that keep heads up above the madness of the world in 2020 and beyond. Like their first record, all tracks were written and sent over messaging apps from respective bases in Portugal, France and UK, and each testifies to the enduringly positive links between the young Angolan-Portuguese diaspora who have emigrated from Portugal during the 2010’s.

The crew’s 2nd volley channels their concerns and hopes into resolutely upfront dance music primed for better times. On EP standout ‘Xupetsilon’ Danifox shrugs off snide DJ politics, crooning what translates to “you’re coming to bite me but you’re not a dog” over deep blue chords and pendulous batida drums, while conjuring bleaker, rainy scapes that suit the mood of his lyrics about jealousy and and contempt in ‘Aguenta’, but lets the music do the talking with remarkable results nodding to Drill and bittersweet computer music tones alongside co-producer DJ Lycox on another big one, ‘Mete o Bass.’

Lycox also supplies a romantic kiss to his home city, Lisbon, or “Lisa” as it’s affectionately known, in the lissom shuffle of ‘11h na Lisa’, which shares a svelte lilt with Puto Márcio’s slower, melodic chops in ‘Coisas da Vida’, and DJ B.Boy keeps the vibe tilting up with ‘Kuribotas’, a scudding Kuduro zinger with direct, incendiary effect comparable to P. Adrix bits.

Always killer, right?