Review Summary: Steppy dubs for dub steppy dubstep lovers.
Knife Party’s
100% No Modern Talking has a lot in common with Skrillex, Feed Me, and Noisia. It’s unashamed brostep/electro house with enough wobbles to take down a building. This shit is filthier than your mom’s rag after cleaning the kitchen table after a birthday party. This EP is not going to transform the genre of dubstep in any meaningful way. Indeed, this is as dubsteppy as dubstep gets, with the typical build-ups, ultra loud womps, and expected voice samples. While the sound is stereotypical of dubstep, it gains brownie points for fairly solid execution, and ultimately the EP is pretty entertaining as dubstep goes. It’s definitely not EP of the year though…
The problem with this EP is there is zero nuance. The buildups to the obligatory bass breakdowns are too long, and occur too often to keep the listener hanging on every sound. ‘Fire Hive’ is the worst song, being Skrillex-esque and too bent on bringing down the bass, as though womps in themselves create a great song. I totally get the need to shove the loudness of the whomps in our faces, but some better songwriting would’ve been nice, and would’ve made the louder sections stand out.
Except for its uninspired execution, the EP is still enjoyable. ‘Destroy Them With Lazers’ has expectedly fun videogame style sounds, and ‘Internet Friends’ is just a blast, and the catchiest song. Even ‘Tourniquet’ (despite sounding exactly like a Feed Me song) still hits hard. Throughout the EP, there is a sense that the songs could easily include rappers or singers, with rappers rapping alongside wobbles, and singers replacing synthesizers in the songs’ faux-choruses. The melodies are also downright enjoyable, which I can barely say about Skrillex. If Knife Party continue at this pace, the building blocks are there for a bright future. For now though,
100% No Modern Talking does not evolve the dubstep genre. It’s a decent EP, but I look forward to more interesting music later.
