Ground Control

Rudimental return with their third studio album, Ground Control, released today on Atlantic Records UK — and it is an unapologetically big record. Sixteen tracks deep, it piles up the guest spots like a festival poster: Anne-Marie and Tion Wayne, Digga D, Ella Henderson, Kojey Radical, Maverick Sabre and Hamzaa all pass through, and the brass-soaked drum & bass that made the band’s name still anchors the whole thing. Six years on from We the Generation, this is Rudimental gunning for the mainstream with both barrels.

The DnB core is where they’re most at home. Come Over opens with garage-swinging percussion and a rubbery bassline, Anne-Marie’s vocal skipping over the top with Tion Wayne’s verse grounding it in the present; Jumper, with Kareen Lomax, is lighter and springier, all rolling hats and sweet, airy chords. The real rave moment arrives with Remember Their Names, a five-minute, Josh Barry-fronted roller where the drums finally cut loose and the bass hits with real weight — liquid funk at its most anthemic.

The pop-leaning features hold their own too. Handle My Own casts Ella Henderson over a shuffling, radio-ready groove, while Distance pairs Maverick Sabre’s weathered soul with Kojey Radical’s clipped, conversational flow to striking effect. Instajets is a taut two-and-a-half-minute grime-flecked burst with BackRoad Gee, and the Latin-touched percussion of Krazy shows the band still have tricks up their sleeves.

Closer Keep Your Head Up is the record’s emotional summit — a gospel-house anthem built on warm keys, Hamzaa’s soulful lead and the full-throated swell of the House Gospel Choir, its euphoria earned over five unhurried minutes. It’s the sound of the whole project’s commercial instincts resolving into something genuinely moving, the four-to-the-floor beat carrying the hymn-like chorus to a properly cathartic finish.

Ground Control is commercial-leaning by design, and anyone hoping for the underground edge of the band’s early singles may find the gloss thick in places. But it’s also expertly made: the production is crisp, the choruses are built by people who clearly know how to write one, and the drum work keeps its feet in the rave even when the rest of the song is aimed at the charts. On its own terms — as a big, confident pop-DnB statement — it lands exactly where it intends to.