Archy Marshall - A New Place 2 Drown

Archy Marshall
A New Place 2 Drown
2015
Archy Marshall - A New Place 2 Drown

Looking at Archy Marshall you may get a different idea of what kind of music he makes. A white Londoner you would expect some kind of acoustic Ed Sheeran trype of sound, but what you get instead is a mixture of Hip Hop, R&B and alternative music. A New Place 2 Drown takes it's cue from 90s Hip Hop with bleek themes and muffled tracks supporting lyrics that are never right on the surface instead they are buried behind some kind of effect. The result is something classic, but very new. While his delivery often leaves something to be desired, it ends up being somewhere between spoken word or rap, the tracks are expertly crafted and sparkle as the absolute best part of the album. These tracks just playing in the background would be incredible, but with Archy doing his thing over them they do loose a little. You want a producer that is clearly this gifted to work with the best lyricists around to really make something great, that just is not that case here.

This album was actually released with a book of art and a short film all of which are supposed to work together to tell a tale of South London. The album for the most part provides the bleak darkness that can come with urban living. The darkness of the tracks however only add to their complexity, they become well rounded and whole rather than just a part of the story. The songs on the record all seem to work together leaving very little distinction track to track. All you know is that there is clearly a great deal of talent here however when it comes to singing/rapping it probably is not Archy's strong suit. The record begs for more talent in that zone, something to round out these beautiful tracks and make them great. You can come to A New Place 2 Drown for the wonderful sounds, but the spoken words might leave you feeling sunk.

6.2 out of 10