Crowhead - Born With Teeth

 

Manchester’s Grand Central Records folded in 2006, but its spirit lives on through Crowhead. Is that a good thing though? As a label, it singularly pursued a musical blueprint which remained in place to the end. There was a gentle pickpocketing of black music styles – soul, funk, hip-hop, reggae – which then were filed down and had the edges taken off. The result, and one which this album achieves stolidly, was white-boy boom-bap hip hop beats, scratched-up soul samples, watered-down funk lines and the odd bit of rapping and toasting. Even at the time, the output of artists like Rae & Christian and Aim seemed a bit derivative and samey, so there was no chance of a hand-me-down like this exciting in 2009. It’s as if dubstep, grime or bassline never happened. Maybe Only Child wasn’t after all – if he had a brother, this would be his album.