Review:
Having spent the best part of three years honing his skills in Budapest and (briefly) Bristol, dubstep studio boffin DJ Madd this year finally delivers his debut full-length, the decidedly murky The Real & The Shadow. Opening with the creepy, low-end strut of "The Real & The Shadow" itself, Madd delivers a set that variously alternates between dark room intensity, synth-laden creepiness and muscular, crowd-bating riddims. There are some notable diversions along the way - not least the soft-centred vocal cut "Deeply" and old skool rave-up "Junglist" - but these are merely odd moments of clarity amidst the paranoid, weed-stoked gloom (see the sonic paranoia of "The Life You Choose").