Review Summary: Forget sounds, I'm releasing the hounds.
The atmosphere was dense. It was pitch-black in the labyrinth. A faint cracking could be heard in the distance. What was that? Nothing. Hopefully. A right turn, a left turn, a right turn, a right turn, a left turn, going in circles. The walls are filled with light as an explosion fills the halls, and you can finally see the murals that had been hidden by the darkness. Also, you can see the hounds. Staring at you. A firewall closes in on you.
With every project he puts out, the question with Andrew Huang remains absolutely the same. What now? Just coming off of a 59 song-collection, a loving and hilarious tribute to 80s New Wave and a minimal-techno EP, it is hard to predict what will come next. Will he continue his early career and put out some folk? Will he be experimental again, like he was on Schism? Another venture into Chiptune? The answer is no, for he has found a new obsession.
Dubstep.
And a big shudder went through the audience. Dubstep? A genre with a respectable start, but turned into an almost universally hated style by artists like Skrillex and Borgore. Tackling this is difficult, when you have as much talent to live up to as Andrew Huang. Will he let the bass drop a lot? Will he do something in its mellow roots? Will it be mindless wubbing? Will it be melodic? Will there be experiments?
Well, he does it all. From its mellow roots to its „brostep“-form today, you can find almost everything on this album. Starting off with the incredibly mellow and atmospheric Kaleidoscope, which incorporates the wobbly bass-lines very well into its melody, this project starts out on a remarkable note. Following this comes the instantly catchy Sanction, which isn't too far away from a song that Skrillex would produce, but with way better melody-writing, vocal chopping and better production-values. This song however gets cut off by the experimental Fireworx, which juxtaposes firework-sounds against slightly a-rhythmic bass-programming.
From here on out, the album smoothly glides through every kind of dubstep you could possibly imagine. Showing some influence from UK Garage, chiptune, minimalist techno, dancehall, hell, even the obligatory dubstep-rap number can be found on here, with his great remix of his song The Hounds, called The Catacombs.
But still, how redundant is this LP? Since dubstep has the reputation of being overly repetitive, this is a valid question. And the answer is, it is really not. There really is, first of all and as said, a great variety in style on this record, but also, his songwriting, as always, is nothing short of amazing. The atmospheres on these tracks are tight and evocative, being calming, eerie, destructive, diabolical and even kinda hopeful sometimes. This is great music to imagine your own movie in your mind to. As stated before, also, the production-values again are ridiculously high, with every sound and every rhythm sounding as clear as water, nothing getting lost in the mix. His melody-writing is on point, however his song-structures are a bit toned down. But while this album is a more standard affair for Andrew, he still finds enough things to make most of the songs not too predictable. And while yes, there are brostep-tunes on this album, the drops mostly change with every appearance in each song, making it enjoyably diverse.
And in the end, this again is an impressive album, working a bit like a time-capsule. Almost every kind of dubstep is present on here, which makes for a highly enjoyable listen with high replaying value, because of the tiny details Andrew puts in every song. Also, this is a great project to cross off a genre in your list to, if you want to be an artist as diverse as Andrew strives to be. Highly recommended.
Everything was burned, everything was destroyed. A smell of ash lingered through the remaining corridors of the labyrinth. Whatever lived here once, it was all gone. The sound of long forgotten screams could still be felt. A loud cracking was heard. An archaeologist with his team discovered the labyrinth after so many years of being destroyed. What is still left to find here?
