Dedication

With Dedication, Zomby's first release for the legendary indie label 4AD, he's turned increasingly inward-and it's an entirely welcome trajectory.

The great magic of this record is that while acclimatisation to Zombyland is taking place, there's so much depth to explore, be it the bizarrely effective tonal shifts, the diversity of musical style, the sense of simplicity that, no doubt, veils immense complexity.

Each of the thousands of individual beats, bumps, dots and dashes on Dedication sound forged with a sculptor's eye for form and shape, crafted and shined until they glisten.

Whatever genre you want to label Dedication as, it is a remarkable album.

Dedication is not an easily accessible album, but I cannot think of any other experimental album that is. These types of albums become increasingly rewarding with every listen, and this is one that should be heard.

For all his ADD tendencies, Zomby knows how to sequence.

The pervading mood of Dedication is oppressive and borderline paranoid, but it makes for wonderfully innovative, state-of-the-art urban electronica. [Aug. 2011, p. 104]

Zomby's early work stood out for the care with which it was created, but even given that, there's something startlingly mature about the production here.

The result could have been an album so mournful as to lose itself in self-serious introspection, but Dedication's brief track lengths mean the album is breezy in a manner unbefitting of its ostensibly grave subject matter.

After the vibe he seemed to be going for, it seemed awkward to end the album on an upswing. That being said, this is a startlingly mature and accomplished album.

There's a pervasive haunted sense of loss and melancholy that links these 16 tracks together, giving Dedication a depth and elegance not often found in more dance-focused dubstep.

Zomby is a fantastically personal person whose music has never come across as less than touching. Dedication defines him as an artist to watch, and perhaps more importantly as an artist to be enjoyed.

But however you define it, its beautiful atmosphere of sadness and decay is hard to deny.

Whether this is a one-off or a bridge to something more substantial, it's satisfying in the present and will likely increase in stature as years pass.

Credit to this fine record that, when you actually listen to it, the need for explanation feels like the last thing on your mind.

Zomby's achievement with Dedication is in plausibly connecting these austere sounds to underground bass music. The best DJs can do this, but few producers even try.

While little of the album bears the immediate impact of Zomby's best work ("Tears in the Rain," "Spliff Dub"), this latest offering from the spectral producer proves much more enduring a record than he seemed capable of a couple of years back and one that makes as solid a case as is imaginable for integrating dubstep into the mainstream as one of the genre's first great releases on a label not named Hyperdub or NinjaTune.

Dedication is definitely an accomplished record and a milestone for Zomby, rewarding continued personal investigation in the same way that Where Were U In '92? found its success in laser beam focus and visceral appeal.

Some might lament the fact that so many tracks feel like teasers pointing toward something longer and more developed, with most of these two- or three-minute ideas fading out as soon as they get a good, eerie groove going. If so, you can take comfort that he's given himself so many possibilities for album number three.

At 35 hefty minutes, Dedication is Zomby's most complete statement to date. But, much like the man, it offers a number of details in one hand while obscuring other crucial signs with the other.

It's an overheard confessional, or an electronic diary entry from a very sad masked man, and an artistically impressive and musically satisfying one at that.