Album Review: Kano - Method to the Maadness

Kane Brett Robinson, better known as Kano realeased his fourth studio album 'Method to the Maadness' on the 30th of August 2010. Despite playing a massive part in bringing the UK grime scene forward, Kano has never really made it commercially and is not as well known as other grime artists such as Chipmunk, Dizzee Rascal and Tinchy Stryder; in order to change this it seems with the release of this album, Kano has evolved his music style with more of a dubstep/D&B style, whilst still maintaining his lyrical genius and amazing flow. The album includes songs produced by Chase & Status and features including Wiley, Damon Albarn, Ghetts and Vybz Kartel.

As of yet there has been three single releases from the album, one of which 'Spaceship' is produced by Chase & Status. You can really tell what Chase & Status have done in terms of the track, moving with the times and generating a dubstep feel; implementing this with Kano's talent makes 'Spaceship' my personal favourite of the album. Some people say that Kano is getting weaker lyrically recently, but this track alone proves that he is infact getting better with age. I would also say that this is the track that will appeal to most listeners as the best on the album, simply because of the well known producers and of the catchy chorus. The video features Kano sporting some extravagent yet stylish clothes in typical Kano fashion and reflects the song brilliantly - however could be seen as repetitive and boring by some and would appear to be have been created with a low budget. 'Get Wild' is the first single to have been released from the album and quite frankly is different from the rest of the album, it reminds me more of Kano's older tunes such as 'Buss it up - ft Vybz Kartel' which still shows that KA hasn't sold out his old ways for the commercial lifestyle. A feature on the track is Wiley, despite me being a big fan of Wiley I feel he is is simply blown away by the immense lyrical flow of Kano; the track on the whole is not one that would appeal to your typical listener as it does not just consist of a catchy chorus, but one that you can really appreciate the skill of the writer and the time/effort that has been put into it.

Other than these two tracks I don't really go back and listen to the other songs on the album, this may just be because I'm used to a bit more variation in Kano's albums such as 'London Town' whereas most of the songs on MTTM are similar to each other. Kano Performed his other single 'Upside' on the TV show Big Brothers Big Mouth and despite me trying (and I really did!) to like it, playing it over and over in my car - I just thought that it was not up to standard at all and not really worth the effort. I also have to include the fact that when I was encouraging my friends to listen to and enjoy the album, that one of them referred to it as like 'Ross's Noise' off the sitcom 'Friends' if you are familiar with it (the keyboard noises). On a whole I think the album is a success in Kano's career with helping him progress to greater heights and becoming more well known on the music scene. If I had the choice to get my money back for the album, I beleive I would still keep the album and that if you are wondering whether to purchase this; give it a try, its something different to what you would normally expect as it is, I believe is a result of Kano attempting to increase his target audience. I do however think that their will be another - better album not far away for Kano.