Skream - Skream EP

Bucket-hat on head, whistle round neck, horn in mouth...can you guess what it is yet? Hats Off is Skream doing old skool hardcore in his sleep, a piano roller that should be deducted instant points for giving Loleatta Holloway’sGot Me Burning Up vocal another run out (on last count its sample rate had reached infinite figures), and where Skream flies even closer to the sun with a gratuitous Mike Skinner snatch of geezerness. Something to delight and disgruntle in equal measure, festival folk will jump for joy to the Amen breaks and spangled ivories; others will see right through it and start bellyaching across message-boards.  
Dubstep power-sanders Heavy Hitter and Rigging both take the form of geysers of hot water smashing into the air. The path they tread is of the straightest and narrowest variety, suggesting Skream is still spreading himself too thinly, though neither gearbox grunts are offering friendly handshakes. Heavy Hitter is an H-bomb of skedaddle-or-be-trampled boom and pound, and Rigging similarly sounds like manning a warpath is just the job it’s looking for, jutting and juddering with rage to the sound of springs bouncing out of its armoury in an Incredible Hulk-style flex reducing its clothes to rags.
 
Sea Sick does sound like choppy waters have gotten the better of its captain, synths tumbling over and over to fit the bill of stomachs set to a spin cycle. On paper, not interesting at all, but with the EP’s trademark drum spanks telling the queasy sensation to man up, it’s one going for broke as Skream dives into an aggressive tailspin.