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It's about the best a studio grime album can be.
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With Playtime Is Over Wiley is finally living up to his reputation by achieving consistency without becoming mediocre; delivering a steady, honed set that's sharp enough to split flesh from bone.
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Apr 26, 2011Across the album, there is not much advancement production-wise, yet there is just enough contrast that it does not make like Treddin' on More Thin Ice.
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It's honest, intense, funny, furious, and on 'Letter 2 Dizzee'--an olive branch to his estranged protege--tear-jerkingly poignant.
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Playtime Is Over is exactly what we've come to expect from the garage sound of grime. It isn't trying to be anything it's not.
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Playtime is Over, Wiley's third album, is full of tunes long on hookcraft considering their thrifty origins.
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Wiley has kept his formula mostly intact: skittering, hiccuping bounce rhythms, synths that sound like a turbocharged Super Nintendo with a subwoofer attached, and a manic, borderline-toasting flow that plows through everything in its path.
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Playtime Is Over is miles forward from the Wiley of 'Wot U Call It' and 'Who Ate All the Pies' but it sits uneasily behind Sway's One For the Journey and Kano's The Mixtape projects
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Beatwise, Playtime culls Wiley's best dubs from the last year, with tracks like 'Bow E3' and '50/50' flexing textbook mastery over grime's sludgy polyrhythm.
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SpinWiley only occassionally departs from the script. [Oct 2007, p.112]
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As it stands, though, Wiley's third album is less inspired sign-off than something of an empty accomplishment.
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Just cold, robotic electro beats with Wiley's aggressive cockney flows on the usual subjects.