Yahoo! Music Album Review

Released on 05/10/09
Label: Search And Destroy

In 2002, Lethal Bizzle and his MC buddies Ozzie B and Neeko quick-tongued their way to number seven in the UK charts as the More Fire Crew with the track "Oi!" They were at the forefront of a soon-to-explode grime scene that would see Lady Sovereign appear on the Late Show with David Letterman, hear Wiley change everything with "Wearing My Rolex" and watch Dizzee Rascal get propelled from an unexpected Mercury Music Prize to international stardom.

Since then, upstarts like Chipmunk and Tinchy Stryder have jumped on grime and turned it into something kids who like Taio Cruz will buy. The genre's changed and Bizzle, solo since 2005, has a question to answer: mega-fame or credibility? As one of the scene's bigger personalities he's already had a stint as a Guardian columnist and been embroiled in a public beef with David Cameron, and his third record, "Go Hard", suggests his answer to the question is: both, please.

Accordingly, he's recruited masters-of-their-trade Mark Ronson and Gallows to help him construct two shameless assaults on the Top 40. Ronson's is "Lost My Mind" and (obviously) provides "Go Hard" with its most radio-friendly moment thanks to a repetitive violin riff and appealing jitter-bounce beat. However, "Rockstar", with Frank Carter and co, is a dazzling lowlight. On top of the punk act's basic-at-best riffing, Bizzle insists he's not a hip-hop or grime star at all but "a motherf**king rock star", even though it's the only song he's ever done featuring a guitar. The point, we suppose, is that he's a crossover artist, but it gets lost in the ridiculousness of it all.

Elsewhere, Bizzle's not shy about harking back to the days when being a yoof pumped with lyrical savagery and the aggression of a Staffordshire bull terrier was the way to get places. The fizzing electro-grime bullets "Can You See Me" and "Crazy Nightmare" are thrilling, and he gives the (defunct since 2005) More Fire Crew props on a number of occasions, most explicitly on the soulful and pacey "Push It". The problem is, "Go Hard"'s constantly unsure if it wants to top the charts of its own accord, dominate Radio 1 with big-name collaborations or avoid getting friendly with the mainstream at all, and so flits between the three hoping no one will notice.

Bizzle ends the album with the deeply unpleasant "Who The F**k Are You?" which starts as a smartly ominous, plodding rave tune but is ruined with declarations that "I'm the f**king king", an account of his birth as a grime Jesus and the suggestion that crews that don't like him should "suck my dick". It's a nasty finale, and leaves a bad taste in the mouth.

    by Tom Howard