This isn't the same musical landscape that Kevin Martin left a crater in when he released London Zoo as the Bug five years ago. Even leaving aside every radical mutation and crossover blowup that's splintered off from the dancehall, grime, and dubstep scenes that ran through the album's veins, Martin himself has proven to be just as hard to pin down. The eerie, stripped-down ghost-dub King Midas Sound evolved from side project to remixers' platform to ongoing concern (don't sleep on the “Aroo” single). Kiki Hitomi, the wraithlike vocalist who's served as a regular collaborator with Martin across multiple projects since 2009, teamed up with him to explore heavier digital dub styles as Black Chow. And the last time anything was released under the Bug name proper, it was a series of 7” records on Martin's aptly-named Acid Ragga subsidiary label late last year that were abrasively confrontational in the best way, stuff that sounds like a future path few have successfully caught on to yet. Familiar comfort is not what you should expect out of him.
And yet familiarity is what you get on the Filthy EP-- familiar names, familiar rhythms, familiar beats. Not enough to breed contempt, but just enough to make it clear that it's not one of his more revolutionary releases. The last time five years passed between Bug albums, the difference between Pressure's glitchy dancehall and the blistering ragga/dubstep of London Zoo pointed to an engaged expansion of an already versatile toolbox. Filthy is more like using whatever nearby blunt object as a hammer. The two twice-versioned beats that comprise the EP are strong and borderline anthemic but nothing all that revelatory: the drum patterns are solid but simple, the basslines throb but don't really explode, and the melodic elements (such as they are) more or less churn in place, with insistent horn blats (“Freakshow”/”Dirty”) and warped calliope synth (“Kill Them”/”Louder”) doing more to reinforce the beat than play off it. It's heavy stuff, but Martin's wheelhouse is bigger than this.
Most of the vocal collaborators are previously known quantities, too-- good ones, but only one of them an actual change of pace. Roll Deep cornerstone Flowdan, one of the strongest presences on London Zoo and several Bug singles released beforehand, shows up twice and gives his booming, gravelly drone of a voice a thorough run. And while he sounds fired up sneering at horsemeat fast food on “Dirty” or challenging sound systems on “Louder”, neither of them sounds like a major advancement from the 2007-08 run of collaborations that included the likes of “Warning”, “Ganja”, and “Jah War”. Daddy Freddy's leafblower-growl turn on “Kill Them” covers the dancehall front, but the juxtaposition of a previous Pressure collaborator running amok on the dubstep-styled turf that London Zoo laid down is more a quick jolt of recognition than a sustained rush of the new. That leaves us with the leadoff track, “Freakshow”, in which Hitomi wails in that odd hushed midpoint between vulnerable and threatening before Danny Brown's libido goes nova during a characteristically unhinged sing-song rampage. (All I'll say about the lyrics is that you'll probably want to start ordering your Caesar salad with vinaigrette from here on out.) It's the one moment that actually feels exciting and daring instead of just reassuring, and on the heels of Darq E Freaker teamup “Blueberry (Pills & Cocaine)” and the Purist's “Jealousy”, it does just as much to reinforce Brown's unique chemistry with UK producers as it does to play up Martin's collaborative insight.
Not that a two-riddim EP this short is much of a harbinger of anything. As a teaser for the upcoming Angels & Devils, it does less to stir up oh-shit anticipation for a devastating blindside of a record than the prospect of Gonjasufi and Death Grips collaborations do. If you're looking for evidence of any major stylistic shift in Martin's approach on Filthy, it's better to settle for a solid reiteration of a lot of the stuff he was doing on his last album. Who knows-- this might be the last chance you get with it.
