Burial - Street Halo

Here he comes to save the day. As dubstep slowly morphs into chilled out electronic pop (Darkstar), wibbling coffee table nonsense (Blake) or a cartoon version of itself (Coki), Burial re-appears from the shadows to attempt to regain the crown that he never really lost as no-one has really pushed things any further. 'Street Halo' pretty much continues where 'Untrue' left off with the usual eerie, late night atmospherics and sampled decayed soul vocals this time sparse and not overdone which they could be at times on 'Untrue', the main difference being some nice heavy bass rhythms which kick the track on and provide a much needed counterpoint to the simple beats. Its a lesson in 4/4 repetition, the track only develops slightly throughout but exists on atmosphere and a pulsing nature. All of which makes the second track 'NYC' a little disappointing, a wishy washy half formed effort that sounds like Burial by numbers - irritatingly he's used the exact same snare sound from 'Street Halo' which adds to the overall sense of 'will this do?'. Thankfully the final tune 'Stolen Dog' is an absolute corker. It comes from that breed of melancholic, uber-haunting slowed down tracks that made large parts of 'Untrue' so rewarding. Nothing has changed in the formula, simple beats, gorgeous atmospheres, layered sampled vocals, its just cooked utterly to perfection. More of the same, yes, but when its this good who cares? Clint.