Last year, Novelist finally released his very long-awaited debut album Novelist Guy. The album was a long time coming and a cleverly-balanced cocktail of everything we'd come to love Novelist for—old-school grime rowdiness, experimental riddims and just a hint of rap—and we were all left feeling pretty satisfied. And then he started hinting that another project was not far behind it. He kept his cards close to his chest, revealing only the title and a "Rhythm & Gash" dub. It had also been reported that he'd recently been in the studio with Flohio and Sevaqk, leading many to believe they'd be on the album.
And then it dropped and in true Novelist style it was full of surprises. Reload King featured just five tracks (six if you get the bonus version), one of which was a voice note. Although "Rhythm & Gash" appeared as the bonus track, everything else was completely new. Production came from Nov himself as well as Waifer, DJ Mondie, Dot Rotten, and, of course, Rebound X. Reload King is a fiery, straight-to-the-point grime workout and we definitely got a treat, but we can't help wonder what happened to the Flohio and Sevaqk collabs.
