Wiley: Treddin' On Thin Ice

If drum 'n' bass was color-streaked graffiti in musical form, then the new genre known as grime is a black-marker tag scrawled on a bathroom mirror. Started in London and disseminated by dint of Dizzee Rascal, grime flails somewhere between dance music and hip-hop, drawing from the roots of rave and rap just enough to simmer in its own juices. Genealogy goes a long way in grime's rich backstory, but as a style, it's still too new and fresh to prioritize the past over the present.

"Fresh," however, might not be the best word to describe music so raw and rotten: By minimal digital design, grime slinks and slurs like sewage running under dank London restaurants, where culture-clash locals gather for mash and trade barbs. The first big grime release since Rascal's Boy In Da Corner, Treddin' On Thin Ice shows off the genre's premier producer: Wiley, a sharp sonic visionary and fair MC at the core of London's Roll Deep Crew. In "The Game," Wiley revs his kinetic vocal flow over wobbly beats, which slash fast bursts of action through a leery hip-hop lilt. In "Pick U R Self Up," he bevels swift-tongued toasting with a buoyantly intoned chorus—two parts mimicked by a tight rhythmic loop and nicely chintzy strings.

Space plays a big role in Wiley's production, which sounds thin and slicing even as details grow robust. Tracks like "Wot Do U Call It" (regrettably about the contentious coinage of "grime") and "Got Somebody" trade in sparse sounds: errant computer blips, unsettled basslines, croaking robots. The album's highlights ("Doorway," "Pies," the title track) reach out for eerie tones that lean toward icy climes and quasi-Asian outposts. A few tracks creak through middling lulls, but Treddin' On Thin Ice throws out more than a few anthems of a new kind.