Only a fortnight ago, Hyperdub signing James Young flatly stated that dubstep was ‘done’, going so far as to claim that his group, Darkstar, would now turn in the direction of shoegaze: a scene which is, of course, far from over.As King Midas Sound (KMS) give birth to their new baby, a faceless latex obstetrician fumbles the product of their fertile copulation sending it tumbling onto a cold, tiled floor. Crying, bloodied and ignored, Waiting For You lies out on its own ”“ bitterly ignored and waiting for a place to call home.“Cool out, cool out. Don’t try to trouble my sound. Cool out, cool out. You know you just must get down,” orders Roger Robinson on opening shot, ‘Cool Out’, the chorus sounding like a softly worded retort to Darkstar’s spiky proclamation. Backed by Kevin Martin’s (The Bug) simple, atmospheric beats, KMS are guilty of being the reflection of a confused genre. Though the typically sparse affair fits within the beats-per-minute regulation as dictated by dubstep, there is little obviously ‘dubstep’ about the album. Instead, Waiting For You sounds much like an album conceived amidst the wave of British trip-hop during the mid ’90s, but formatted with the abuse of new and improved sine waves.The driven darkness that spilled out of 2008’s London Zoo is noticeably absent from KMS and the angularity of traditional dubstep producers (like Joker or Sukh Knight) is blunted, rounded and blown apart into the splintering shrapnel that glances over tracks encased in reverb. A descending siren-like synth wails over the pre-chorus of ‘Meltdown’ - mirrored by an equally composed deep sigh during the verse, and the track lifts during the outro when a sparkling, burbling wash is meshed with an electronic glockenspiel sound. The perpetual minimalism doesn’t push Robinson’s voice to the fore of the mix as the prominent frequencies are still reserved for light snares, clicks and thudding bass; but this mix is never consistent. ‘One Thing’ pushes the bassline out whilst reigning in the digital thunder conjured up by Martin as he cleaves an alternative path through his vociferous forest; ‘Lost’ dares to momentarily dry out Robinson’s voice and fully expose its fragility whilst snares trip over each other, but ‘Dahlin’, the sexy, mysterious paean, sees snares shoved to the back of the mix in order to make way for Martin’s signature syncopated percussion - the sort that littered London Zoo’s ‘Poison Dart’.With instrumentation limited to the occasional lead synth line and stabbed chord, Waiting For You is naturally filled with cavernous reverb and precisely orchestrated delays and Martin gleefully fills barren spaces with Robinson’s echo. Thematically, Robinson’s focus broadly falls onto relationships (broken and successful), straying once into conscious lyricism.With no discernible trace of guitar, timbale, or boisterous horn section, there is little to link KMS to traditional roots reggae. Yet, a poetic resemblance to Gregory Isaacs lies within, and though the means have changed, the reflections cast about by KMS’ industrial surface bring to heel a hackneyed genre. Maintaining an inimitable form, KMS deliver a reverie around the effects of Caribbean culture and the Capital. So while ‘Donestep’, or whatever dubstep becomes, falters and stumbles before gratuitously and fatuously self-destructing, it’s the dedicated and the refusenik that can expect triumph.From this brood, KMS’ progeny will surely rise.

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