Skream! - Self Titled

Sheez...what a day! Really sorry about my tardy postings - but I've just been crushed with nonsense all day long. Alas, I'm finally ready to get on with my music today! Finally! So it's Tuesday - which always means two things. And numero uno on that list is Techno Tuesday. The last review I did for dance music spawned another DJ that I hadn't heard of, Mr. Skream here aka Oliver Jones. He was born in 1986 and was born in jolly old London. He turned DJ in 2003 or so - but I'm reading he was also part of some super amazing dance group called the Magnetic Men. With the huge influx of dub in the music business, I'm kind of surprised that more groups don't exist. I mean, you have a ton of smaller acts trying to make a living. In theory, if they joined forces, you could make some more noise. Just sayin'. Anyways, this is one of two studio drops for the solo work of Skream. This dropped in 2006 with the second one coming out last year. This self titled work seems to be one that generated next to no buzz. He was pretty much unheard of at that point, which means a lot of critics probably didn't take it seriously. So the question is in hindsight, should it have gotten more pub? For me, this album is a solid start to what could be a solid career. It's got that very 'spooky' sound at the beginning, which you'd expect from a name like Skream. And quite frankly, that's different than what else is out there now. Track three switches to an almost reggae type style, which is just strange given the first two. I don't know. While I want to be high on this because it's different, the mash ups are just so odd it's a hard listen. Maybe the next one got better?

TRACK LISTING:
1. Tortured Soul
2. Midnight Request Line
3. Blue Eyez
4. Auto-Dub
5. Check-It
6. Stagger
7. Dutch Flowerz
8. Rutten
9. Tapped
10. Kut-Off
11. Summer Dreams
12. Colourful
13. Emotionally Mute (Outro)

Listen To Samples

Top 3 Tracks:
1. Tortured Soul
2. Midnight Request Line
3. Rutten

FINAL RATING:
2.25 out of 5 stars