Russell White became the darling of discerning clubber’s with 2011’s Glass Swords, with one UK newspaper moved to name it their debut of the year. Ahead of the follow-up, however, the Glasgow native seems to have distanced himself from the project’s mash-up of kitsch samples and bludgeoning grooves. He has, he declares, grown up and aims to make music that is less ‘silly’.
Alas, one of his strategies has been to recruit some workaday rappers (D Double E and Danny Brown), whose cliché-laden rhymes actually represent a backward step for White. At its best, Green Language coheres into something that is lissome and high-soaring (the title refers to a scientific term for the language of birds). However, there is a whiff of someone trying slightly too hard – Rustie’s second is endlessly serious but not much fun.