Review Summary: Borgore widens his arsenal beyond the club fillers that made him famous.
The various different strains of Dubstep that exist now compared to when I first started listening late 2006/early 2007 is pretty impressive. The likes of Burial and Distance are exploring the deeply atmospheric urban sound of the inner city, Clubroot and Boxcutter exploring a deeply rooted ambient sound, Guido and Starkey on the other hand are experimenting with a more cross-over type sound halfway between IDM and Dubstep. Finally however is the type that Tomba, Shekel, Stenchman and pertinent to this review Borgore produce. The sound of this particular sub-section of the genre has been more than adequately summed up before in youtube comments such as: Dirtier than a council house drug den, filthier than fingering your sister and finding your dad’s wedding ring, more disgusting than letting an incontinent man squat on your face, MORE DISTURBING THAN…ok I’ll stop now. Pioneered by Stenchman this darker form of Dubstep is characterised by the dark twisted basslines and more prominent usage of more off beat samples, exemplified by the opening track to ‘Gorestep Vol.1’ entitled ‘Love’. Borgore largely made his name of the back of some excellent drops, jokey misogynistic rapping and some astounding re-mixes. However the samey, although brilliant ‘Gorestep Vol.1’ did garner a great deal of backlash from Dubstep purists who saw the emphasis on bass drops and beats as a step too far leading to audacious claims he had ‘ruined Dubstep’.
Rather than allowing this to affect him, Borgore embraced the tag wholeheartedly, and is now back with ‘Borgore Ruined Dubstep Part 1’ a much more varied effort than ‘Gorestep Vol.1’. The over reliance on the twisted bass drop jokey tongue-in-cheek style misogynistic rapping and sound affects has largely gone, save for ‘Nympho’ and ‘Cry Me a River’ with the latter a spectacular take on the Ella Fitzgerald song and the former having probably one of the best basslines drops in any song to be released this year.
However the rest of ‘Borgore Ruined Dubstep Part1’ either consciously or unconsciously done is vastly different from all of his other material from more ambient styling, to the rudimentary 8-bit type of stuff fascinating a large portion of Dubstep producers to the throwback UK Garage of ‘My Favourite Tingz’ likely to impress and appal purists of Dubstep alike. ‘Sunsets’ Featuring Diplo does contain another one of those typical bass drops, however the heavily distorted guitar intro and outro coupled with Diplo’s eerie vocals presiding right throughout the track seems to give it a bit more substance rather than just being a vehicle for a drop. ‘Thoughts’ is a largely uninspired attempt at yet another incorporation of 8-bit into Dubstep.
‘My Favourite Tingz’ is the most interesting however due to the attempt at a recreation of UK Garage akin to the type that was coming out in the early past of the last decade, with the vocals similar to that of Pop Garage hit ‘Favourite Things,’ smooth jazzy Saxophones playing out in the outro and another stellar bassline coursing through the entirety of the song.
Overall Borgore has refined his arsenal, his drops and beat production are as fantastic as always but he’s shown a different side to his production and although he has a tendency to rely a little too much on his drops, ‘Sunsets’ in particular shows a side to Borgore willing to progress his music beyond the one dimensional club fillers he excels so well at.
