The Deep End

Itch was once the lead singer for the almighty The King Blues, a Ska band from London that called it quits in 2012. Itch returns on his solo outing with The Deep End, an album that will probably leave some of his fans on the fence. 

 

On one hand The Deep End kind of respects the spirit of Itch’s work with The King Blues, mashing together a lot of different styles of music from Dubstep to pop to hip hop. My real problem with the album is that it clings lightly to the political and sociological themes that Itch covered with TKB but it feels very watered down by a kitchen sink-like production. 

 

I didn’t quite know what to expect when I first threw this album on. I half heartedly hoped it would have been something more along the lines of TKB, but I told myself I would be prepared for whatever happened. I was wrong. 

 

In this day and age we have so many pop groups crowding radio dials, farces like The Voice and American Idol giving us pop covers and churning out mostly pop ready performers that have a lot of heart, but no real direction. It feels like a real tug of war here on the album between Itch trying to be himself and rapping about change, but ultimately being drowned out in a laundry list of special guest acts and, again, a kitchen sink approach to making the album more accessible to seemingly everyone.

 

One minute you’re picking through the pop vocals of Taking Back Sunday’s Adam Lazzara on Homeless Romantic to find the core performance of Itch talking about coming up rough and sticking to your guns and then you’re scratching your head at the silliness of Another Man as Itch plays dialogue turn for turn with Megan Joy. I kind of see the purpose of this track, but in the end it seems like filler. Don’t even get me started on Laugh featuring Matisyahu. 

 

I wanted to love the album and embrace it fully but it wants to be something for everyone. It’s got Rock, Dubstep, loaded with radio ready Pop which makes Itch’s more fierce rap flows sound almost laughable at times. I understand at the heart of the album it still covey’s the same type of message, unity, but it’s so clouded with all the ugly parts of music that have dictated the direction of musical history over the past few decades. It’s like listening to Zach De La Rocha performing with Nickleback. It just isn’t natural. 

 

Like I said, the album is going to leave some fans on the fence, like myself, while others will simply embrace it with the same kind of loyalty that made TKB so monumental in its time. Either way, it’s a halfway decent album that will probably make big waves as long as it gets enough support, and with the massive amounts of special guests on the album and radio ready tunes, chances are pretty high. As always, final judgment is yours. Enjoy.