Review: N.E.R.D - No One Ever Really Dies: Their finest album to date

4/5

All is changed utterly as Pharrell Williams returns to his under-the-radar band project after a seven years hiatus. In the interim Williams – better known as one half of the Neptunes production duo – has stumbled into unlikely pop stardom, courtesy of the cheesy Happy and the sleazy Blurred Lines (which he wrote and produced for Robin Thicke).

But far from building on the success of those singles with No One Ever Really Dies he instead swerves back towards the underground. Working with Chad Hugo, his partner from the Neptunes, and long-time N.E.R.D collaborator Shay Haley, he has delivered a dense, sometimes muggy but consistently fascinating plunge into the shadowy side of r’n b.