having set out his stall over the years as a provider of hard hitting mixtapes and remixes, king cannibal aka dylan richards has finally dropped his debut album on the mighty ninja tune label.
taking up the challenge laid down by london zoo last years intense release by the bug (also ninja tune – gone now are all those stereotypes of the label sticking to the trip hop groove), dylan blends together a hard hitting collision of dancehall, d-n-b, techno, dubstep, grime, ambient, and even industrial across these eleven tracks of sonic chaos.
while london zoo was conceptually an urban album with a variety of vocalists laying down their firebrand toasts, let the night roar takes the listener on a very different journey.
for this is an album oozing violence, paranoia, fear, and blood.
lots and lots of blood.
entwined in the bass heavy, neighbour disturbing beats, are noises, and treated vocal cut-ups that imply that dylan has watched far too many slasher movies, a fact underlined by the intense imagery that accompanies the release.
all of which could be interpreted as a corny cliche, but instead, the oppressive mood and atmospherics are played out brilliantly sucking the listener into the damaged mind set of king cannibal.
[note : for all the talk in the labels press release about king cannibal being the ‘hard man of ninja tune‘, you just know he still phones his mum every thursday to talk about recent events in coronation street]
the album kicks off with previously released vocal heavy tracks, murder us, and virgo adding an extra level of drama and intensity to the dancehall styled beats, after which the vocals are sidelined (after a blistering gruffed up appearance by daddy freddy during dirt), and the album drifts into a cold human-less void of treated vocal samples, fractured synthetic noises, and just when you think the music is a little too one dimensional unexpected moments of calm and melody provide the light to counteract the dark.
there is no denying it, the album is not an easy listen, and should not be played when in the presence of people with a nervous disposition, however the depth in the production is fantastic, making let the night roar stand out from the glut of compressed to fuck productions that have hit the release schedules in ’09.
shitty 128 mp3s will not suffice.
widescreen in its ambition, and cinematic in its scope, the use of space in the dynamics makes this an album that demands attention.
after all, god is in the detail.
somewhere.
summary : album of the year.
more detail : here