Xl Vinyl & CDs

Review: In the four years since his debut album as King Krule, south Londoner Archy Marshall has been busy as solo artist, collaborator, rapper and producer. He now returns with 'The OOZ', an expansive record that's densely packed with disparate musical influence, dark and personal storytelling, and Marshall's distinctive sneering charisma, all framed in his usual backdrop of seedy urban vaudeville. It's an incredibly layered album that offers the listener a guided tour through this disturbing and decayed landscape of atmospheric smoky jazz, grunge and ambient. Even at nineteen tracks with a runtime of just over an hour, The OOZ is something of an epic that never feels overdrawn, by dint of its richly illustrative, engulfing and transportive nature.