REVIEW: Kid Bookie - Songs For The Living // Songs For The Dead

Many years ago, the worlds of grime and rock were profound in their differences, two gardens, both lush with potential, sat on either side of the fence. With Kid Bookie’s latest offering, the ten track ‘Songs For The Living // Songs For The Dead’, he is here to take a

sledgehammer to that fence. Kid Bookie escapes the box, with a Jekyll-and-Hyde-style offering that is set to knock out a few teeth and give it a kiss better by the hook of the next track.

From the first note of the opener, Tyronne demonstrates his natural ability to create bangers.

With a blistering introduction and a chest burster of a chorus, that’ll have you taking the long

way home - ‘AI (Save Yourself)’ throws you into the album and sends you spiralling. The track is a staunch fuck you, drenched in tight harmonies and witty bars, that explore Bookie’s craving to break free from the modern world. As the last chorus rings out, the Londoner dares you to expect more of the same as the solemnly sweet ‘Purgatory’ begins to sound. The gentle, acoustic track can’t help but lull you into deeper thought, as Bookie takes on love in his own way. Drifting through feelings of hopelessness with velvety tones, it’s a tearjerker at the very least, and at the most it’s a tender surprise, wrought in emotion that shows the full spectrum of his ability - not only as a songwriter, but as a vocalist too.

If it were most other artists, it could be said that placing such a tender song after one so full of rage would be detrimental to the offering, but not with Bookie. Sure, the transition between the two is a thunderstrike, but don’t be fooled into believing that either song loses out from this; it’s arguably the opposite, Bookie has crafted a listening experience that is designed to make you want more. Which we definitely do.

Bookie takes genre as another tool to add to his already very full hitmaker toolkit, and no song feels as though it is pandering to one genre to appease another. From grime to pop-punk in the plucky ‘Love Drunk’, a track oozing nostalgia, Tyronne takes no prisoners in showing how effortlessly he can genre-blend and make a statement. Take some inhumanly fast verses, throw in a couple of skull-crushing breakdowns, and you’ll get the massive single ‘Scars’. This, on the same set as the massive ‘Love Me When You’re Angry’, gives us two songs that are both bubbling with gumption and fully equipped to blow your face off. It’s this gall that gives Bookie his spark and keeps you guessing whenever you do decide to hit 'next'.

It's harder to say that the shorter interludes on the album, notably ‘Self control’ and ‘DOWN MY FRIEND’, deserve their place as much, however. They don’t hold the same memorability or unpredictability that we know Bookie is so capable of. They’re nice, which is almost unfortunate in this instance, as they miss out on an opportunity to further make a statement, or keep you interested past the first listen.

If Tyronne Hill wants us to know one thing with his latest smash, it would be to expect the

unexpected. ‘Songs For The Living // Songs For The Dead’ screams this sentiment from the off right the way through to the dying notes, a diverse set of punches and tickles, stabs and kisses from the opening note to the final chorus. Kid Bookie is constantly defying himself, cementing himself as the man who can do it all.

Best Songs - ‘Love Me When You’re Angry’, ‘Scars’, ‘AI (Save Yourself)’, ‘Purgatory’

Words: Charli Marriott

Photo: Paul Harries