Album Review

Skream – Outside The Box

• 14th Jul 2010

Skream – Outside the Box (Tempa)

New full-length release from Skream (with a ‘k’!) sees the Kroydon-based dubstep producer coalesce with a high profile cast of hyperfamous collaborators. The track accompanied by La Roux is a treat, her vocal being melodic and satisfyingly produced – it’s easy to forget that she is a cut above the likes of Florence and the Really Terrible Machine or Lady “Really Terrible” GaGa.

Lead single ‘Listenin’ To The Records On My Wall’ is another highlight, with smooth-operating square waveforms leading along a beefy DJ Shadow-esque drumbeat. When the vocal hook of “I want you / I need you” comes around, however, things take a hairpin turn into ringtone obnoxiety. Although I am fairly convinced that one could warm to this chorus after a certain number of plays, that amount far exceeds how many times the average dance fan is prepared to listen to it.

All of the mixes are shoe-shined but half the synth timbres and drum samples are just bland and bring to mind the crap plugin-preset music you get on illegal package installers for cracked copies of Fruity Loops. One exception is ‘8 Bit Baby’ which, when you manage to hear behind the completely empty rhyme-spitting of Murs, boasts a nice restrained chiptune feel. Another anomaly is ‘Fields of Emotion’ which has sweet hi-q percussion and visceral swelling sub bass.

A lot of the melodies on this record tend to burrow their way into your brain’s drive-you-insane lobe, but when the tunes do become lodged in your head, do not fret as this can be more pleasant than parasitic. For a few hours, that is. There are also moments of pleasant pad-driven repose here – ‘A Song For Lenny’ for example – but these are dwarfed to an embarrassing degree by any specialising ambient artisan; see Belong, Stars of the Lid, Marsen Jules, or every second person walking down the street in Norway.

The title of ‘The Epic Last Song’ is a nauseating, boat-missing po-mo cliché which just comes across as both masturbatory and lame, but the track itself is just fine; you wouldn’t not dance to it, and the soaring melody line that first enters at about 2:30 actually makes a good case for the self-proclaimed Epicness. Much like a lot of the tunes and synth sounds on Outside The Box, it recalls the most fondly remembered of Sonic The Hedgehog levels.

Even if they are largely cookie-cut material for droned up house party DJs to spin until they spill cigarette ash on their vinyl, there are some woofing choons amongst these fourteen tracks and the balance of nostalgic computer game territory and big ripping beats is as good as it could be. On the whole, however, this album unfortunately seems to cower firmly inside the box.