Review Summary: Datacat is f*cked up.
I have a certain dislike against horrorcore. I don't know what it is, but something about the cheap, halloweenish sounding beats and the same crap recited over and over ad absurdum really turns me off. And while the occasional success in the genre is to be found, see Gravediggaz or early Three 6 Mafia for example, it just isn't something you can expand upon succesfully. If you don't want to fall into the endless barrage of un-distinct crap, you really come up with something more creative. Like, making a horrorcore album almost completely without lyrics.
Say hello to Ethan Smith, or datacat, as he calls himself. Not much is known about him. Well, in fact, besides his name, his work for Exordium-Music and his birthday, nothing is known about him at all. Which already is a great start, if you want to display a weird and off-putting character. Datacats style of production can accurately be described as dark sounds manipulated with 8-bit filters, deep and growling bass and chiptune-samples with a hint of dub and noise. It really is distressingly dark, and I wouldn't advise you to listen to this with headphones in the darkness.
Regarding headphones, I would still advise you to listen to this with a good pair on. There are a lot of fine details hiding behind the obvious grooves in the foreground, which is quite the accomplishment, seeing how minimalist his style is. He also displays a great ear in songwriting, placing exactly the right sounds for the songs to build up and uses samples from videogames, that will make you feel at home, only to twist them in ways that will screw with your mind. It truly is a unique experience that has to be heard to be understood.
However, for every pro, there is approximately half a contra. When datacat opens his mouth to rap, almost all the time it is uninspired horrorcore-drivel, which can just stand on its feet because of his deadpan and kind of menacing voice. Except for some interesting spider-imagery in spiders.exe, it's just not that good. His rhymes are okay, nothing to write home about, but also nothing to get worked up over. There are just two songs on here where he appears as a vocalist, and it helps the album a lot.
Also, even though the sounds he uses are very interesting, a lot of material on here seems simply unfinished, like the SR388 Interlude, which has some interesting ideas, like the drums going in and out of a consistent rhythm, but ultimately adds up to nothing. Or the single Sludge, which starts off with a cool groove, but with a runtime of almost 5 minutes, there is just not enough material for me to justify this length. It drags on.
In conclusion, this is a good and worthwhile project by a very interesting producer, albeit underwhelming lyricist. The dense atmosphere displayed on here is really impressive, and if you like actually horrifying horrorcore, but without the garbage-lyrics, this is definitely worth picking up.
