In the Mode, the new album from Roni Size's Bristol, England, drum'n'bass collective, Reprazent, could be every critic's album of the year, but if it didn't pass "the test," it never would have been released.

Size, a Brit with a dash of Jamaican in his thick accent, said his acclaimed records are designed not for the U.K. dance clubs or radio waves they tend to dominate, but for his modest car stereo.

"It's all about the car test," Size said in August from Island Records' New York office. "It's you, all by yourself, in your car. You've got your system on. It becomes very individual. If I'm driving around by myself at night and I see a girl singing all the lyrics to herself in her car, I know she feels totally safe, totally happy. She doesn't care that I'm looking over. I love that idea. She could sound terrible. She could have the words wrong and everything. But you know what? It doesn't matter. She's one on one."

In the Mode, released October 24, is certainly an album that offers a different listening experience for each individual. Reprazent, a group of wildly diverse musicians, put a little something for everyone in the mix, whether it's soothing R&B, digitized funk or smoldering hardcore. The influences just take some digging around to find.

But as much as the album works on an intimate level with each listener, it's also a symbol of artists coming together under one thumping roof. Former Rage Against the Machine frontman Zack de la Rocha, Wu-Tang Clan's Method Man and the Roots' Rahzel unite with the eight-piece group on various tracks, all in the name of experimental drum'n'bass.

Dynamite, Reprazent's firecracker MC, and Onallee, the group's soul queen, play more prominent roles on In the Mode than on 1997's Mercury Music Prize-winning debut, New Forms. And producers Size, Krust, Suv and Die have stepped up their level of production to include fewer samples and more layered instrumentation, courtesy of new bassist Si John and drummer Rob Merrill.

"I had each person in the project put their piece in," Size said, noting that "Ghetto Celebrity," the collaboration with Method Man, best sums up Reprazent's progression.

"The way that [song] is broken up and layered — there's so much going on but you can't actually hear it. That's a secret to my production. We drop stuff that's different than straight jungle, and there's five or six different vibes, yet it all sounds like one thing."

The album's high-profile guests are an example of how far Reprazent have come since New Forms, Size said.

"On the last album, we did a few people we wanted, but because we were quite unheard of, it was a struggle to get guests on there," he said. "[In the Mode] was a test for my record label [Island]. They said, 'Let's make it work. Let's do this for Roni. It's what he wants.' And that is what I want. I'm a producer; I want to work with a lot of people."

"Ghetto Celebrity" and "Centre of the Storm," the ditty featuring brainy beat poetry from de la Rocha, are definitely standouts, though it's the Rahzel track, "In Tune With the Sound," that sounds most groundbreaking, as Size accents his guest's beat-boxing with his own fierce beats.

"Rahzel was the one I really, really wanted," Size said of the collaboration. "I went to New York and tried to track him down. He was away on tour, but I waited for him to get back and then we went into the studio the next day. It was all touch-and-go. But he turned up and it was great."

Several of the tracks on In the Mode were recorded with similar spontaneity. When de la Rocha entered the studio, Size plugged a microphone directly into the mixing board, and the Rage singer ripped out his vocals right there in "the pod," as Size dubbed it. On "Who Told You," the album's first single, Size and Dynamite landed the track in a matter of minutes.

" 'Who Told You' is something that is absolutely different than anything that has happened before for us and in the dance world," Size said of the song, which pairs a pulsating hi-hat and steady kick-drum with impromptu raps. "I was in the studio f---ing around with a beat and I called Dynamite. 'Come down really quick.' I played the beat for him once. He put the headphones on and went, 'Wicked!' He went straight on the mic and started jamming those lyrics. It was done."

The track appears to be winning over fans as quickly as it was recorded. Island quickly tabbed it as the single, and famed video director Hype Williams (Jay-Z, Macy Gray, No Doubt) asked to direct the video.

"Everybody wanted to be part of it, so you know you're sitting on something special," Size said. "It doesn't sound like a Roni track. It doesn't sound like a Dynamite track. And when you see the video, it don't look like a Hype Williams video. It's alien. The whole [video] is going to be like the silent treatment. You will look at it and wait for someone else to tell you that it's amazing."

Reprazent have been an active bunch in the three years since New Forms was released. Size and Die formed a side project, the Breakbeat Era, and recorded Ultra Obscene. Krust released a highly successful solo debut, Coded Language. And the others in the crew have been a part of countless singles and live projects. But, as Size said, "the whole team is currently what the album title is — in the mode."