We already have our King (Skepta) & Godfather (Wiley) but now we can rest assured as grime now has it’s very own Lord, and he come’s in the form of Rival.
On Monday 21st of November (just one week away) Rival will be dropping his latest body of work, his brand new 10 track ‘Lord Rivz‘ EP, and after the incredible ‘Biscuits‘ mixtape he dropped earlier this year there is an awful lot of anticipation for this.
Rival kicks off the EP with an intro, but don’t be mistaken in thinking that this is an ordinary “thanks for listening to my cd” sort of intro, NO, this is a “I’m not wasting a second of my cd” sort of intro, with the warning that if you ain’t happy with the title then you need to just deal with it.
We are then thrown into the recently dropped ‘They Said‘ track which is an effort that has perfection written all over it. ‘They Said‘ would not sound out of place back in the day on pirate radio station, with plenty of vocal samples thrown in this will be a track everyone will enjoy, one piece of advice is listen to this with the sound up as loud as possible, don’t hold back! In fact those warnings on the bus that talk about personal space when listening to your music were meant to be broke for this tune.
Worried that the EP will be full of hype tunes, a bit of a one trick pony? Well don’t be as my two stand out tracks show different sides to this MC.
First of all we have ‘Plan A‘, a track which features Lioness, this is a back to back story telling song, with narration by Kiss 100 and grime lover DJ Logan Sama. ‘Plan A‘ is all about a honeytrap and is engrossing right from the off with a shocking twist at the end, Logan Sama promises us that this will not be the end of the story so we anxiously await part 2! P.S I want to hear Logan Sama read a grime version of Harry Potter (Our very own Stephen Fry)!
The second track is ‘Save Me‘ and features Ghetts. If you had asked me what kind of track I would expect from a Rival and Ghetts collab I would never have guessed this. A slower track then we are used to with a deep and honest look back at their lives which leaves you respecting where they are with the obstacles they have overcome, but don’t get it twisted and think they are complaining. When Rival drops the line “there’s an enemy inside myself” you just wonder how many people can relate to this.
Other tracks include Rival talking about love in ‘Heartache‘, the real look at London away from the cameras flashing on Buckingham Palace in ‘Talk That‘ as well as the ‘3 Steps‘ to a bodybag!
‘Lord Rivz‘ shows real progression from Rival and will leave many fans wishing there were more tracks, yes I know there are 10 tracks already, but when you listen to it you will be saying the same.
We can not leave the review without talking about the tight production and fantastic beats that will leave you literally jumping about the place.
You can pick up your copies of ‘Lord Rivz‘ from Monday 21st November and we would recommend that you do, all that’s left to ask is: When’s the album out?
Reviewer: Michael O’Connor
