It's strange now to think of the time when dubstep was the cutting edge of music, with two opposing conceptions of it fighting over its soul. There was a hyper kinetic tooth-pulling dance noise led by a guy with long hair on one side, and then there was music that sounded like a long nap. At least, that's how critics and fans described it if they weren't drinking James Blake's Kool-Aid. Me, I came back for seconds.

It's obvious now that that battle is over, and the clear winner is the guy featured in hit movie soundtracks and Internet Explorer commercials. I don't think anyone lines Blake up with the dubstep label these days, and so now he's just his own thing. This brand of music with distorted, muffled bass steeped in pits of silence, like painting gray on black. On his follow-up album, OVERGROWN, there is a little more energy and fire, but for the most part it's still the cold earth and the deep sea.