Maid of Honour Review

Gordo and B4U build fourteen tracks that actually move: house, electro, dancehall, Afrobeats and UK rap, none of it worn as a costume, most of it sequenced to keep a room going. Cheetah Print with Sexyy Red is a strange and genuinely inventive piece of construction. Which One with Central Cee carries the hardest drums on any of the three albums. Amazing Shape with Popcaan is what it sounds like when he stops performing his interest in a style and simply uses it.

Critics rated this one well above its two siblings and on the production axis they are right, which is why that grade sits above the overall here. Then he opens his mouth. Hoe Phase, BBW, True Bestie, New Bestie: the titles are the content, and the content is a man deep into his thirties narrating a strip club to himself in the third person. There is barely any writing to fail at, and that absence is the failure.

A record can be carried by its producers if the vocalist supplies a mood, and the mood supplied here is contempt dressed as flirtation, which curdles the dance floor it was built for. The Where's Your Stuff Interlude is the honest artifact of the entire project. Strip the vocals and this is a good DJ tool. Leave them on and it is the least dignified thing in his catalog, and dignity is close to the only currency he has left.