Wiley - See Clear Now

Rating:

* * *

Wiley has been one of the pioneering brains and loudest voices of the grime scene since it emerged in the early 2000s.

On his third album he ramps up the groove, rather than the unnerving and jittery grime factor, and conjures up his most accessible tunes yet. It's a dance-pop spectacular, no less. He lets his many and varied influences come through like the pulsing early-90s house beats that he puts to excellent use on the posturing and fun single

Wearing My Rolex

.

He also samples up a storm with Goldie's

Inner City Life

injected into the big, bold, and swinging

I Need To Be

being the highlight. Then there's the bouncy, gospel-soul of

Cash In My Pocket

featuring live band the Dap-Kings and star producer Mark Ronson;

Turn It Up

has a cruisy head-nodding Jackson 5 lope to it; and the synth bursts of the title track take you back to a time when, rather creepily, Human League might have been making love in an elevator.

But thankfully, Wiley has not traded in his more menacing side as he wades into the berserk stomp of

Step By Step

with party boys Hot Chip and the pendulous throb of

I Am the Sea

.

See Clear Now

will put, as one song points out, more

Cash In My Pocket

but Wiley's managed to do it without selling out.

Scott Kara