It’s been 13 years since the last Deltron 3030 album and (whilst perhaps not totally in line with its vision) the world around us has certainly changed. Del (aka Tha Funkee Homosapien) however, and his prescient lyrics about Deltron Zero’s intergalactic futurist fight and commentary on a cold and loveless planet ruled by mega-corporations, haven’t, much.

By way of context, the croaky narrator relates on the opening track of ‘Event II’(Stardate 3040) “one by one the banks began to collapse again, politicians were running out of flocks to fleece, the middle class had faded into irrelevance… then… when all seemed to be lost… a small glimmer of light appeared in the distance. Could it be? Back from the great beyond…the return, of Deltron Zero and Automator.”

If you’re not familiar with Dan the Automator and Del’s collaboration, you should know it’s wacky, tongue in cheek, and simultaneously bitingly satirical. Fittingly for two multi-talented musicians and producers (who famously appeared on two of Gorillaz’ best songs) it’s all wrapped up in imaginative instrumentation, genre-bending stylings and pan-galactic ambition.

An album with so much to say does run the risk of sounding prolix. Happily, the crucial thing is that it all hangs together, despite the surreal pitch (can you imagine? “So, Dan, I envisage a decade-spanning colab about all the evils of modern society seen through the lens of a sci-fi duo of folk heroes…”) The actual music, the rap, and mostly even the lyrics are accomplished enough you could forget all about the arch concept if you wanted to just sit back and enjoy some sweet sci-fi flow.

The actual hip-hop style is classic, with catchy brass and impressive turntable segments (plenty of scratching notch) courtesy of Kid Koala – here there be no dubstep dragons or synth sirens. A few are more like unconventional skits, but these often provide a lot of the album’s variety, such as ‘Back In The Day’, which is rapped by two old space-traveller friends and a boombox robot. It makes for a rather involved listen (at 16 tracks) but the inventiveness and sense of narrative generally means it doesn’t feel like light years are passing by whilst tuned in.

That said, Del’s lyrics are sometimes a little too on the nose (such as repeated riffs on themes like “the humanoid race feels that they should rule the whole space/time continuum”) and some of the choruses don’t have heavy enough hooks to stand them apart from their close cousins. Beyond that the album’s only other gripe is that thematically it asks a lot of questions and doesn’t often provide many answers, and whilst that might be optimistic, if you’re going to throw your generalist hands up at all the modern world’s ills, you might as well have a crack at solving them all in the same breath.

Still, it’s a unique proposition pulled off with aplomb, and whilst there’s nothing that can quite hold a candle to ‘Things you can do’ on ’3030′, Event II is a consistent, original record. It’s genuinely bizarre and hilarious in parts, simply a solid hip hop record in others, and despite having its sights set on the stars, it lands firmly on the moon. Make of that and Deltron Zero’s prophecies what you will, chances are you’ve got about ten years and a raft of upsetting technological developments in the name of progress to figure it out.