Review Summary: Has It Come To This?
At every bar in the world there's at least one over-the-hill old boy there, hunched over, nursing a cloudy pint with tobacco-stained fingers. He has stories to tell. Oh boy, does he have stories to tell. They're interesting ones too; tales of loves and losses, wild nights and fistfights, family life and strife. The issue is, much like when a good joke is repeated too many times, it loses most of its impact- all that you're left with is a sequence of words that may represent something meaningful had they not been stripped of all interest by repetition. This is the predicament of The Streets; at one time one of the most intriguing and individual acts in UK mainstream music. That's not to imply, however, that the experience of this collection doesn't feel a touch more invigorated after a few releases of quite lethargic material and a monster hiatus of 13 years; there's clear inspiration in the music itself and it takes a tack to its songwriting as yet unexplored by anything Mike Skinner has previously done. Unfortunately, The Darker The Shadow, The Brighter The Light captures none of the brave and world-weary profundity that made his initial run of albums so memorable. There's very little enthusiasm on display, and although it may have pure intentions, the release mires itself in so much gimmickry it sits neck-deep in the stuff, suctioned in like treacle. This is the issue at the core of Skinner's sixth full-length project as The Streets. He is spinning yarns with the best of them, but it's incredibly difficult not to sigh with resignation as we hear the well-worn narrative yet again, and it's not that the story in essence is any less meaningful than it was the first time, it's simply that all the colour has been washed out after one too many rinses.
By way of a little context, in more recent times Skinner has supplemented his career somewhat with a DJing venture, playing predominantly 2-step garage, grime and 4x4 bassline tunes. Although these styles are very much in-step with his established sound as The Streets, the form of the music itself as well as the album's structure overall has been dramatically influenced by this DJing style. Additionally, this album shares its philosophical title with a film that Skinner opines has been in the making for the last 10 years; a neo-noir thriller that has yet to see a wider distribution date despite premiering a few months prior. The film itself centers around a DJ, so allowing the infrastructure of the album to reflect this style feels appropriate and creatively implemented, despite occasionally becoming garish and unnecessarily convoluted in practice. One of the most noteworthy aspects carried over from the specific style of musical performance are the beatswitches; numerous songs on this record feature one, two, even three aggressive musical U-turns during their runtime. Although the individual musical movements are sound for the most part, the distractedly, borderline assaultive shunts between the movements derail the experience and stifle the majority of the album's stronger moments by replacing them with something notably inferior. Conversely, the effect lends the album a novel appeal that was notably absent from the melancholic Everything Is Borrowed and the lacklustre Computers And Blues, but also serves to make the experience feel scrambled and unfocussed and, by extension, extremely shallow.
With the exception of Skinner's blasé, man-in-the-street flow, there is very little about The Darker The Shadow... that points to the creativity The Streets at one point laid claim to. Granted, there is the vague sense of non-refinement that originally made the artist so compelling, but gone are the meaningful jabs at politics and meaningful misty-eyed ponderings set against metronomically uneven beats. The lyrical content is poorly realised and conceptually null, with a wide focus on musicality that needles from grime, to old skool rave, to drill, to 4x4, to fidget house, to reggae, and back again. To his credit, there is a great deal of variety in the genres explored- but lamentably, there was never quite so rigid an adherence to convention on albums like Original Pirate Material or A Grand Don't Come For Free. It was all about finding atmospherics that, whilst diametrically opposed to the content on occasion, formed a harmonious interplay through creative production and smart lyricism. Here, it's heard-it-all-before tunes that don't feel daring or sharp enough to carry their overinflated run times. Take the introductory track, the elegantly titled 'Too Much Yeyo', which itself has two beat switches. It's okay; it has a heady 4x4 influence and the flux on the bass is pleasingly heavy- but there's no real dynamism to any of the proceedings. Between the uninspired construction and the usage of an unnecessary chorus, this feels like a disappointing introduction, and a fitting precedent for the album to set from the off. Later cut 'Not A Good Idea' has a similar bassline influence but feels incredibly sparse in its execution- not necessarily a bad thing (see 'Your Wave God's Wave God'), but the result feels neither 'party' nor 'rap', instead occupying a tedious limbo between the two. Interestingly, the beat switch into a fidget house later in the track actually suits the vibe far better, and it's sad that this angle wasn't pursued more extensively here.
Experimenting with his own established boundaries, Skinner's overreliance on genre typicality is one of his most prominant downfalls here. Songs such as 'Shake Hands' and 'Funny Dream' approach via a grime angle, but undo the substance in the vocal by feeling ill-fitting and trite. Despite the off-kilter DJ mash-up style, these tracks actually work in a skewed way. They don't feel like undiluted 'The Streets', but they do feel like 'The Streets' with a generous mixer. 'Shake Hands' has a nostalgic sense of bluetooth-era nastiness to it, reminiscent of some vintage DJ Oddz cut. It's cool, and the warping bass is nifty and artful, but there is a distinct lack of urgency in the delivery that throws the balance off quite dramatically. 'Funny Dream' is interesting because it showcases Skinner's ability to make an ill-fitting beat and vocal work in tandem, but the track itself is nothing beyond passable, particularly by the big man's own standards. The chorus is also a complete gutterball, which is a recurring trend on this collection. Updating the style to more modern preoccupations, the drill chops on 'Someone Else's Tune' are one of a few welcome saving graces for the album. The combination of Skinner's vocal against a drill structure is a strange one, but the combination works well due to the texture of the beat against the recitation of the lyrics. Unlike drill as a genre, it feels downtempo and understated, and to a degree actually subversively utilises the influence in a way that feels smart and refined. This assessment is discounting yet another ill-advised beat switch, though, which grinds most of what the initial portion of the cut establishes into the dirt.
Amongst the influences on display, there are a smattering of psychedelic/ cosmic forays ('Gonna Hurt When This Is Over', 'Good Old Daze'...), as well as some that feel like callbacks to earlier works ('Each Day Gives', 'Troubled Waters'...), and even a country track rears its head ('Walk Of Shame'). For the most part, though, these feel like pale imitations of their stylistic precursors rather than personal spins or respectful updates. 'Each Day Gives' has the irritating quality of turning the earnestness dial up to 11, and with an underdeveloped piano hook/ beat backing up the lyrics, the experience is exceptionally dull. At the other end of the spectrum, 'Gonna Hurt When This Is Over' makes use of a sitar for its trippy ode, and this is, surprisingly, quite the diverting addition. There's synergy between the beat and bars, and the lyrics have actual substance to them. It's a shame, then, that the chorus is so uncharacteristically icky. A similar issue can be found on one of the release's more bizarre moments, 'Bright Sunny Day', which is wildly inconsistent between the verses and chorus, but in an unusually intelligent way. The verses feel dark and foreboding, whereas the chorus feels light and chipper, which is a creative use of sonic design considering the album's title and theme, particularly when the beat in the verses encroaches onto the fringes of the chorus’s breeze. However, this selection is also home to some of the worst lyrics on the album;
'I got greedy with the talking/ should've gave a little listen,
but that's like a toilet complaining about pissin''
'The world gave me it's phone to look at just one photo,
but I had to have a scroll'.
It's somewhat sad that one of the UK's premier street poets, who could always be relied upon to spit venomous barbs at an assortment of targets, seems unable to articulate emotion in a hard-hitting and creative way anymore. This collection isn't a complete write-off lyrically, but it certainly shows a lapse, perhaps even moreso than its more recent predecessors.
Whilst results from artists with different backgrounds sidestepping into film have been quite mixed, I'm inclined to believe that Skinner's aptitude for narrative and creative vision could lend themselves quite well to the medium, at least from a post-production standpoint. It's incredibly disappointing, then, that this accompaniment or, more likely, official soundtrack, is such a grab-bag of worn-out party tricks and underdeveloped gimmicks. There's creativity on display here in spades, but the pieces don't fit together cohesively, feeling more like a mixed-media collage with too much overlap on the individual parts. The bits that work are too streamlined, the bits that don't are too lengthy, the piece overall is far too bloated, and in an effort to include every single little thing any breathing room afforded to Skinner and his known ability is all but smothered. Despite Everything Is Borrowed and Computers And Blues feeling quite uncharacteristic and forgettable, they were at least representations of Skinner's talent. There was certainly a static that clouded the perception of these albums, but it was still him front and centre, still providing listeners with his abilities, albeit in a manner most were not accustomed too. Disregarding the clear adventurousness of the content here and the occasional defining flourishes, aside from the unmistakable accent there isn't a great deal that harks back to what listeners really loved, wanted, or even expected of The Streets. It's an impressive feat nonetheless and Skinner deserves to be applauded for widening out in his experimentation, but he's far better than a single cut on this overlong experience would have you believe.
