Lethal Bizzle: Go Hard
Lethal Bizzle: Go Hard
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By Matthew Champion. |  |
Thursday, 01, Oct 2009 02:32
Search and Destroy Records, out October 5th.
In a nutshell...
Poppy, Grimey, Bizzle-as-normal, beats
What's it all about?
The third album from early break-through star of the Grime scene.
Who's it by?
Lethal Bizzle was one of the early stars of the Grime scene, rising up from his Walthamstow origins as one of the founder members of the seminal More Fire Crew. After enjoying the top ten success with the crew's biggest hit Oi Blud in 2002, Bizzle went solo, releasing Pow (Forward), which won him a MOBO and the respect of NME. Bizzle looked like he'd become a major crossover star and was swiftly signed to V2 Records, producing second album Back to Bizznizz. But commercial success on the scale that Dizzee Rascal has enjoyed recently never quite came.
As an example...
"They say that money makes the world go round/Money's a genius, even makes a girl go down/How incredible.
"My ex-girlfriend said we don't need money and she loved/I said sorry love is not enough I need money/Love ain't getting me on the bus." - Money, Power, Respect, Fame
Likelihood of a trip to the Grammys
There's nothing with the kind of obvious crossover potential that has served Dizzee and Wiley so well in recent years. At the same time Grime is no longer the über-trendy listener's up-and-coming genre of choice so this is likely to fly under the radar of most of the award ceremony movers and shakers.
What the others say
"Rather than Going Hard as the title intones, the Walthamstow MC continues on the pop-ish bent of 2007's Back to Bizznizz." - Will Dean, Guardian
"On this, his third album, Lethal Bizzle proves he can get a party started with the best of them, most evident in the relentless ravey synths of Going Out Tonight." - Euan Ferguson, The Skinny
So is it any good?
After a blazing balls-out debut and a difficult second album which is dragged into the limelight before it's really ready, the stereotypical artist (if they get there) will release a better-planned, better made third album that enables them to find their truer, more mature voice. Bizzle, always one to challenge bland conformity - witness his put-downs of David Cameron - has decided not to follow this path. Unfortunately, this means he hasn't discovered his own unique voice. He has instead produced something along very similar lines to his last record, which, while not exactly difficult, didn't bring the crossover success that it was expected to.
Perhaps it's because of the lack of a chart topper on his previous record that Bizzle feels he has to keep trying. Perhaps it's because his former rival Wiley has been to number 1 (and back!). Perhaps it's because he's found his star surpassed by the brighter talent of Dizzee Rascal. Whatever it is, Bizzle clearly feels he needs to go through the motions of crossing over here - he's roped in Mark Ronson to produce one track and collaborated with Gallows on another. He's even rigged up a ropey remix of House of Pain's Jump Around. The problem is, that none of this really works. Bizzle's attempts at the 'poppy hooks and obvious lyrics formula' that has worked well for other grime stars always fall slightly short. And it feels half-baked, almost as if he's doing what's expected of grime stars these days.
Where the album works best is where Bizzle keeps it Grimey, spitting hard and fast on tracks like Go Hard. Perhaps this is where his real mature voice lies, and perhaps this is what he should get back to. For the rest of it, there's nothing awful about the electro-inflected crossover Grime beats, but there's nothing that stands out amazingly either. Back to Bizznizz as usual then.
6/10
Tristan Kennedy