Review Summary: The Austrian drum and bass boy are heading into new territories, and create their magnum opus on the road.
The genre that's called drum and bass is exploring new grounds. The typical kick-snare beat has been abandoned a long time ago and new genres have been explored. Sub Focus tried to mix in deep house, dirty dutch and more dubstep with his album "Torus" and now it's time for Camo and Krooked to push the boudaries of the genre. Zeitgeist is their newest creation and it draws a lot of parallels with one of the biggest album releases of 2013: Daft Punk's Random Access Memories. Yes, that's true: Zeitgeist embraces the revival of French house and mixes it beautifully with their signature sound of Cross The Line.
The album starts with "Turn Back The Time", showcasing a brilliant bass-line continuing through the whole track. After Turn Back The Time, the Austrian duo amazes with All Night, in which they abandon their drum and bass-style and instead produce a song which has a way more minimalistic structure, with a kind of "anti-drop". It's really something else, and it's easily my highlight of the album alongside "Loving You Is Easy". Loving You Is Easy displays a like-wise minimalistic beat that's just really, really satisfying. It's not a dance floor killer, but damn, it's good. The Daft Punk-like guitar hooks are the cherry on the pie.
Camo and Krooked are not drifting away from drum and bass, they are simply extending their range of genres. The real drum and bass bashers are found in Move Around, Vice and WKND. Those three songs could easily be on Cross The Line, with their energy continuing through the whole song. Liquid drum and bass is found also with the likes of Ruhepuls, Aurora and Faith. The songs flow well into eachother and the whole album feels like a well-formed mix.
You could say that Camo and Krooked are turning their backs toward drum and bass, but I wouldn't agree. Zeitgeist displays their diversity in production skills while staying true to a signature sound. Easily one of the best drum and bass albums of this year.
