(09.28.04) With this second album (plus the compilation Back For The Future) Dom does what he knows best, powerful dancefloor tunes and deep imaginative pieces. As anyone in the jungle, he does massive use of the amen, mixing it with hip-hop rhyming and scratching on “Just So You Know,” or unleashing its raw power after a calm intro like in “Late Night.”
You should remember this album is released on Moving Shadow, who does a tricky move inserting two US remixes to extend their audience overseas: Dieselboy, Kaos and Karl K remix of “Moulin Rouge” is not bad though, it maintains the flavor and the sound of the original, only with a more straight-to-the-floor texture. Hive instead does a weak mix of two older tracks, “Parasite” and “Adrenalin,” which is kinda strange because I rate him very much and I think he’s capable of much more.
Anyway, Dom chose his collaborators very well and you can hear the impressive results: “Ethnicity” (with Kemal) is an absolute masterpiece made up of synthetic bass and oriental influences, with crispy breaks bouncing all around. But it’s when you hear “Rhino” that you hear the perfection. Dom and Skynet built a track on Pitch Black samples, both alien sounds and Vin Diesel speech. After a long atmospheric intro, a heavy drum hit seizes the air, and then starts the apocalypse of breaks and bass. There’s no weak track in here. I want to mention “Dance All Night” for its hit single attitude, a peculiar mix of bleepy synths and female vocals, and finally “Break Out,” another groundbreaking tune, not the d’n’b you’d expect, just an abyss of sound.
There are not much albums like this around, so check it before labelling it just drum’n’bass.
Chronology is out now on Moving Shadow.
