Dubstep in 2010 is in a similar position to drum and bass a decade ago: stylistically full-grown and perhaps exhausted, its experimental wing drifting into other niches while the remaining core wonders whether the music has already peaked. It's the perfect moment in which to launch an assault on the charts: liberated from any drive for formal innovation, and whittled down to a simple and recognizable repetitive groove formula, dubstep can now inhabit a variety of pop guises while avoiding the identity crisis such moves would have provoked five years ago.
Enter Magnetic Man, which appropriately enough is something of a dubstep supergroup comprising Benga and Skream (perhaps the scene's two most broadly popular producers), together with Artwork, who've been largely silent since their trend-setting 2002 EP Red. Notwithstanding the aggregated pedigree, Magnetic Man feels like a Benga-helmed affair, and most of the group's eponymous album comes on like a fleshed-out, glossy take on Benga's 2008 album, Diary of an Afro Warrior. The good news for dubstep fans is that this self-consciously sleek and glossy makeover doesn't really depart from the template that album established. The bad news is, well, that is the bad news: Benga's honed brand of lurching, constipated grooves represents dubstep at its most enervated and unappealing; the widely held conviction that this template represents dubstep at its most crossover-friendly is simply further evidence that audiences are unhealthily enamored with buzzing ugliness right now (file it all next to David Guetta-produced R&B).
If Magnetic Man remains a substantially better album than Diary of Afro Warrior, it's because there's more going on than just Benga's boring beatwork. Having abandoned any pretense at rhythmic tension or novelty, the group instead focuses on constructing trebly, fleshy synthesizer melodies cribbed from mid-00s electro-house (and, by extension, trance). The results vaguely recall the lush but metallic pop-techno of Ellen Allien & Apparat's Orchestra of Bubbles. This is a sensible direction for populist dubstep, and Magnetic Man concoct appropriately weedy synth arpeggios and moody atmospherics, though the psuedo-classical motifs on "Flying Into Tokyo" and "Karma Crazy" trip into hamfisted territory. Ultimately, though, these attempts at melodic levity remain constrained by leaden beats and the boom/bust dynamics of the arrangements, whose cyclical predictability results in most of the tunes' exhausting their welcome within minutes.
Things go better on the vocal tracks, where that same predictable structure usefully frames verses and choruses, in the process receiving a revitalized sense of purpose. The excellent "Crossover" pits the wearying grind of the bass-driven groove against Katy B's soft, nurturing vocals, capturing musically the suggestion of temporary sanctuary from endless struggle that Katy paints lyrically. This is the sort of songwork that dubstep facilitates best-- unless it's the cocksure swagger of Rihanna's dubstep-influenced "Wait Your Turn", here represented by the grim "Fire" featuring Ms. Dynamite providing stern ragga chat. Consistent with dubstep's preferred range of emotions, the songs on Magnetic Man are all variations on a military march, choosing dogged determination, smouldering aggression, or vexed frustration over love or lust.
Maybe it's not romance that dubstep has difficulty accommodating so much as release-- the ecstatic affirmation that is dance-pop's raison d'etre. The exception that proves the rule on both counts is the vibrant "Perfect Stranger", a heady collision of moody halfstep R&B verses and breakbeat-driven old-skool rave choruses, with Katy B again handling vocal duties with airy grace. "Perfect Stranger" may depart from dubstep's formal sonic signposts, but its explosive releases of rhythmic vitality capture perfectly the appeal of uptempo dubstep at its best, while underscoring the frustrating limitations and contradictions of the rest of the album. Magnetic Man's arrangements may proudly flaunt dance-pop's most universal qualities, but their efforts remain mere gestures so long as their beats continue to stare so resentfully in the opposite direction.
