Rustie - Green Language

 REVIEW 

Rustie Loses Glimmer But Only Just 

Russel Whyte burst onto the scene in a flurry of screeching synths and pixelated glory with his universally acclaimed 2011 debut, Glass Swords. It was a wide-eyed cross section of rave culture, touching on UK grime, dubstep and trance with the type of wonder you'd expect from a kid in a candy store. To experience Rustie's work is to dip into the almost synaesthetic  clusterfuck of colour, taste and sound you'd expect from an acid trip while watching Adventure Time. However, where Glass Swords was a bold and imposing statement, naive in all the right ways, Green Language feels like a shadow of its predecessor, due in part to a seemingly sleepy second half.

After the early and wholly  satisfying climax of Raptor with its sky high chords and instant sugar rush, the album struggles to return to those dizzying heights, matched only nearly by Danny Brown's shrieking to the point of breathlessness over Attak's infectious melody. Returning the favour after providing Danny with the beat for Old's Dope Song to much fanfare and interest from hip hop circles, Danny adds an entirely unique moment to Green Language's already glittering landscape. There is a certain drug-overdosed fatalism to Danny's performances, a sense of hurtling towards your death at high speed that elevates Attak to something far more human, flawed and undeniably brilliant.

From then on Green Language coasts towards the finish line with more subdued R&B leaning moments such as on Dream On's radio-ready appeal. He Hate Me works as a sparklingly warm hip hop number that could very well have been recorded in a towering cathedral made of crystal, complete with uplifting choir chants occupying the background and a slightly more-than-okay performance from the duo Gorgeous Children's Face Vega.

Green Language then trails off with scintillating piano keys echoing into nothingness with its title track, somewhat mirroring the ambivalent, scattered feel of the album in its entirety. Where every track on Glass Swords felt immediate and incalculably huge, Green Language comes off more as a very good album with two or three standouts. It's lighter in feel and less dense than its predecessor, only clocking in at under 37 minutes, leaving one hopelessly clutching at the hope of more. If recent releases such as Triadzz or Slasherr perhaps made it into the second half, it would've helped revitalise the last stretch considerably. For those looking for another Surph or City Star, you won't find that here, but even in Rustie's most average moments his work still packs more colour, vibrancy and outright wonder than anything currently out there.

Green Language is out August 26th

Stream the album here