(no subject)
If I rolled, I'm sure that Pendulum's Hold Your Color would be the occasional ecstacy-induced romp through the most neon-infused party districts of the parts of the world that still live in 2000. This album blows the listener up so much, it should come with glowsticks!
Raver jokes aside, the trio's combination of classic drum-and-bass with slick, afterhours synths can induce euphoria, until they flooding your hearing with mechanical distortion or big beats. Example: they surround "Another Planet" (which sounds like some cyborg alien's dreams would look) with "Streamline" (the best BT track in the last eight years) and "Still Grey" (a song blessed with blips and bloops and that somewhat-hackneyed aural wave of refreshment).
This formula plays out several times over the album's length...yet it has more staying power than most electronic music out now (read: anything not mixed by Nick Warren, because with him you've got shit for life). I mean, I'm serious when I say these songs stay with you. I've been hating "Fasten Your Seatbelt" and its Alfred Molina/Doc Ock sample for almost two years now. I still crack up when I hear that ridiculous rhyming on "Tarantula," and I still think the title track is the last hurrah of DnB in the new millennium.
What these tracks leave behind, though, is just like the result of those hypothetical (st)rolls through the remaining club landscape: nothing but wisps once its last track fades out. You'll come back and recognize some of the serious ear candy that had you banging your head, though, and that's the best you can ask of drum-and-bass. As far as electronica goes, Hold Your Color is like a quickie sandwiched between your morning coffee and cereal and your first step out of the door. Its fuzzy, hazy, and tinged with sleep while setting the tone for the rest of your upbeat day.
Raver jokes aside, the trio's combination of classic drum-and-bass with slick, afterhours synths can induce euphoria, until they flooding your hearing with mechanical distortion or big beats. Example: they surround "Another Planet" (which sounds like some cyborg alien's dreams would look) with "Streamline" (the best BT track in the last eight years) and "Still Grey" (a song blessed with blips and bloops and that somewhat-hackneyed aural wave of refreshment).
This formula plays out several times over the album's length...yet it has more staying power than most electronic music out now (read: anything not mixed by Nick Warren, because with him you've got shit for life). I mean, I'm serious when I say these songs stay with you. I've been hating "Fasten Your Seatbelt" and its Alfred Molina/Doc Ock sample for almost two years now. I still crack up when I hear that ridiculous rhyming on "Tarantula," and I still think the title track is the last hurrah of DnB in the new millennium.
What these tracks leave behind, though, is just like the result of those hypothetical (st)rolls through the remaining club landscape: nothing but wisps once its last track fades out. You'll come back and recognize some of the serious ear candy that had you banging your head, though, and that's the best you can ask of drum-and-bass. As far as electronica goes, Hold Your Color is like a quickie sandwiched between your morning coffee and cereal and your first step out of the door. Its fuzzy, hazy, and tinged with sleep while setting the tone for the rest of your upbeat day.