Album Review: Sarm - Sarm

The cover of Sarm's debut is a photo of our hero. It's entirely in black and white save for his Lacoste collared t-shirt and his Nike Air Max sneakers. Those are both bright orange. Clearly, this is Grown Lad Business. We first met Sarm through his crew That's Them. Sarm rapped, Nebs rapped and made beats. The results were good. It helped that Nebs' beats were often spectacular. So how has Sarm fared here with his first solo venture?

Well, firstly, it's not as if Sarm has abandoned his past. Nebs produces all 18 tracks here and drops a guest verse on four of them. On one view, Sarm is about the excellence of Nebs' production as much as anything else. Global Warming, featuring fellow LookUp emcee Rinse, is monstrous. Roll Up is menacing, rumbling boom bap. Who You Know is a bouncy, horn-driven production that neatly captures the zeitgeist.

In the main, though, Sarm is about Sarm. In his earlier work with That's Them he was all mid-tempo fierce growls and menace. Now we learn he's at his best when the beats are a little slower and his raps are a little faster; he's at his best as a grime emcee. Fresher Than You and I'll Abuse You For Fun are good examples. The highlight, though, is Keep It Moving where Sarm holds his own alongside Fraksha, one of the best grime emcees we've got. But just when we think we have our speed-spitting tough guy host figured out, he disarms us totally with When You Hear This, a track about his daughter's struggle with leukemia. It's worth checking out Sarm for the Nebs. It's worth buying Sarm for the Sarm.