Maxsta, Boothroyd, Maniac

100 Problems

Genre: GRIME / FWD

Boomkat Product Review:

Blindsiding grime brilliance from a most unlikely - yet seriously effective - squad including hungry yung MC Maxsta with scene veteran Maniac and Tri Angle's Boothroyd. We'll put it out there; this is one of 2015's most necessary grime releases, bar none.

Rinse assert it's "an unforeseen nod to the past, present and future of grime music" and we'd fully cosign. If you've ever felt short-changed by the short-sightedness of new instrumental grime producers and MCs, 100 Problems is a major payday.

Volleying 6 tracks in under 20 minutes, its breakneck energy levels and handbrake turns feel like a joyride in a twoc'd Audi; Maniac and Boothroyd taking turns at the wheel while Maxsta barks from the passenger seat.

Whether in queng mode for Maniac's hyper beat 100 Problems, or chatting about buff tings in La Senza and deploying Charlie Brooker's "pebble" put down against Boothroyd's HD melodies in No Retreat, everyone sounds effing ravenous, and when they come together on Green Light the results are genuinely different - up there with anything from the classic grime canon but vividly sharpened-up for 2015.

And it doesn't stop there: Mare Street Dick Head just set a new peak for instrumental grime composition with near Autechrian levels of cold, electronic incision and that chorus - i'm a top boy / got stone island jackets / all kinds of nike can't get form the shop boy - whilst the hyper baroque torque of Hood Pharmacist makes it sound like the roadman cousin of Rian Treanor, and the curdled funk of Local Splitter leans on grime's tender, bruised spot with the wryest smirk and cutting bars.

We must have heard this EP 30 times by now and it still puts our jaws on the floor every time. It's massively recommended.

12" (6)