Marvin The Martian - Hoods & Badges EP (Universal)
4/5
By: Thomas Hannan
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'Grindie'. The word just sounds stupid, doesn't it? And yeah, there's something a little peculiar about the grime and indie worlds coming together on record, if only because it's tricky to imagine who in their right mind would have seen it coming. But thanks to the likes of Statik and Marvin the Martian pioneering the scene, it's difficult to think of a genre of music which has less rules to adhere to. In Grindie, it seems, anything goes.
Even, on this evidence, turning the GoodBooks into chipmunks and their 'Walk With Me' in to the paranoid tale of woe that is 'I Don't Go (Alone)' is fair game. What's funnier - it really works, replacing the dark white funk of the original with a wistful, self conscious sentiment to deliver a completely different take on the boys' original offering with total success. 'Around The Way' focuses closer to Marvin's home, a bullish bike ride around the Brixton streets by way of an introduction to the sights and sounds it contains before mashing things up once more with 'Stay Off The Kane', adapting Art Brut's 'Emily Kane' so as to turn it in to something of an anti drugs, pro-floppy fringe manifesto.
Gimmicky? We'll just have to wait and see. So long as the real talents keep providing such a silly word with some genuine credibility, all things grindie might continually elicit more applause than raised eyebrows in the coming months.
Artists in this article: Marvin The Martian
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