It's difficult enough to sift through the constantly mutating strains of electronic dance music ("two step", "dubstep", "grime" etc.). The advent of blogs added an entirely separate layer of white noise to the process. So for me personally, most of what I've heard from the highly hyped blog faves has been a big letdown. Which is why I'm glad to say that the debut album by Burial really does deserve the praise the interbloggers have been draping over it. Even using the term dance music is inaccurate when it comes to "Burial" (check out the "Hyperdub":http://hyperdub.net/ label), this is serious listening music that will not inspire hordes of booty-shakers to flood any floors. The beats are jittery and fragmented, scurrying around and under phased samples and atmospheres. If you've heard Pole or any releases on the Basic Channel label much of Burial will seem familiar, though I hear a bit of classic, detached English funk like A Certain Ratio, too. There is a claustrophobic and disjointed feeling on the album and a number of writers have mentioned the urban (as in location, not skin color) impression "Burial" makes. Even more assuring is the fact that the mystery man behind Burial has been working on the music since 2001 and has only an EP preceding the full length. These days everyone and his brother seems to have a CDR of this week's rehearsals up for sale and it's a pleasant reassurance to think that someone still cares enough to take the time to work on music and self-edit rather than expecting the music consumer to sort through a crowd of releases. I'm confident that this album will hold up to a lot of listening, the weave of instrumental and vocal samples always reveals a little more and this is an album with some depth and breadth. The rhythm track is downplayed enough that it doesn't feel like Burial is stuck on this month's beats. I expect I'll be playing it a lot.