Niveau Zero's not someone I've reviewed before, but I've heard tunes from him in passing, mostly what seems to be termed 'filthstep' on youtube, which is bollocks, its just metal influenced dubstep, and doesn't need a 'label'
Anyway Jasmine by Niveau Zero has to be one of the only dubstep albums I've found myself able to listen to all the way through without becoming a bit bored. Its got some real heavy riffs that wouldn't sound out of place in a black metal song, but then some really uplifting mellow tunes on it too. To say its a really well produced album would be an understand, easily one of my favourites this year too, even the album artwork is cool.
It comes with 7 of his own tunes, and 2 remixes, so its definately not a long album, but if you like it you'll really like it, if not you really won't like it, I don't think there's any middle ground on this one.
Favourite tunes have to be 'The cross (ft Aucan)', complete with American Psycho quotes, middle of the road dubstep beat, but amazing uplifting samples, this is one I reckon will be appearing in a mix soon (I'm determined to actually make the next mix good).
Distorted rules (Niveau Zero Remix). Death metal couple with worb worbs, all about the furious drums and screaming in this one.....
This release is out on ad noiseam, priced at 9 euros (adn161)
It seems like Death Grips have been churning out material at the rate of knots, no complaints from me as they're one of my favourite emerging artists over the last couple of years.
Their latest offering 'No Love Deep Web' is a free download of their website, and comes complete with a photo of a cock (as in an actual erect penis) as the front cover. One the first listen, I really struggled with this album, it was one of those I couldn't decide whether it was genius, or they'd just gone mental. The album has that real death grips 'sound' to it, but over the 3 albums I've heard the production quality has changed beyond belief. Im now on my 4th or 5th listen, and I have to say its well on its way to getting into my top 5 spot for favourite albums at the end of this year now. Some of the tunes are exceptionally discordant to the point I literally couldn't work out the beat to start off with, but this chaos couple with some forward thinking ideas and proper death grips brutality really makes this album into a nicely rounded one.
Stand out tracks for me have to be:
Black Dice: I particularly like the driving bass contrasting the highs in this tune, something that death grips do repeatedly well.
And: Bass rattles stars out the sky - Again contrasting bass and highs working well, but a dream beat and samples that really give a feeling of panic to the tune..... Banging!
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