Seeing as this album is not released on a standard IDM label (ie. Planet-Mu) it could suffer some underexposure. But don’t pass on Doomsday Mechaniks, you’ll find it’s a proper album and not just a collection of tunes. There’s (obviously) loads of dance floor smashers, but there are surprisingly lovely tracks which are completely different from what you’d expect from Luke McMillan.
Just after the first two gabberoid corkers there’s the eerie acid techno piece “Zero Tolerance,” simply made up of a fat drum machine break and a thick 303 bass, a perfect post-rave chiller. And just before the final mayhem there’s time for an ambient jungle tune, with rarefied drum hits and trancey strings, very evocative in its minimalism.
Producer shows some terrific skills when handling hardcore jungle. Apart from doing massive use of old-school breaks, he kicks on the drums on three absolute masterpieces, “Suffering,” “The Biggest Rave On Earth” and “Pestilance Eterna.” The former mixes gabba beats with rolling tinny percussions, and its breakdown is a classic ‘hands in the air’ moment. The second track features the heaviest reece i’ve ever heard, a waving bass that will cause an earthquake if pumped at the right volume. Not to mention all the turntablism and the sampling madness. Finally, the latter unleashes some proper amen break rawness, supported by a massive buzzing bass. The rest of the album is saturated with layers of break battling against layers of beats, pure fun distilled and transformed in heavy and fast dance music. There’s also an awesome ghost track, a slow hardtek voyage full of icy bleeps, a perfect ending for this journey into distorted rhythms.
I don’t know why there isn’t a vinyl version of this, i bet it would sell thousands of copies.
Doomsday Mechaniks is out now on Third Movement.
