Album Review: Urthboy - Smokey’s Haunt

There are various criteria for judging a rapper's greatness. Perhaps they make excellent choruses. Perhaps the lyrics are incredible; maybe delivered with a unique voice. Perhaps greatness is being able to take any four bars, loop them and make a chorus you'd listen and re-listen to. Urthboy passes all those tests and more. He is a great rapper. And Smokey's Haunt is a treasure.

Stories opens proceedings. It is reminiscent of previous big singles: high production values and a catchy hook. Naive Bravado is up next. Released months ago as a standalone single it didn't bang as we might have expected. However here, in context, it truly is hypnotic. Pop sensibilities meet great raps. Then, to complete the hat-trick: Cleopatra, a reflection on poker machines that rumbles ominously and, impossibly, turns an everyday tragedy into a grand dirge. The Big Sleep is a lingering heartbreaker. On Your Shoulders is a restrained, but assured, rallying cry. Hey Diane matches Urthboy's combustible take on a flawed relationship with Bobby Flynn's caramel crooning. On Glimpses, Knee Length Socks, and Orphan Rocker our host gets autobiographical in a way he hasn't before. Only Empire Tags falls below the standard set by its siblings. Listenable, but little more, it is the album's least interesting idea punctuated by the album's least impressive hook.

The untitled secret track at the end of Orphan Rocker (a track that might be called Cold Front) is a rare joy. All plinky pianos, urgency, and menace; it is the song we have been hoping to hear from Urthboy for nearly a decade. We leave Smokey's Haunt with this searing polemic ringing in our ears. Our host doesn't descend to naming names. His stance is not confrontational, but dismissive. “I'm saying I don't think that you're dangerous”, he says. He's right, of course. As a truly great rapper he's above all that. Don't miss this.