Rave Digger

Droid化名Danny Byrd的新专辑。 And THEN someone finally jumped out of the rabbit hole and saved 2010. It’s become sort of a recognizable pattern over the last decade: One artist making a lifesaver each year. In 2006 it was Concord Dawn’s Chaos by Design. In 2007 Matrix and Futurebound made Universal Truth. In 2008 it was Bachelors of Science's Science Fiction and last year we had Logistics’ Crash Bang Wallop!. For a while 2010 looked like it would become the most depressing year of DnB since 1492. Band after band failed miserably and the future of mankind looked bleak. Then comes Danny Byrd, who previously showed potential with 2008’s Supersized and release one of the strongest contenders for 'album of the year'. So what exactly is it that put Rave Digger way above the maggots? Lots of things, but first and foremost because Byrd knows how to connect DnB with the right elements. On Rave Digger he have, as one would have guessed from looking at the album artwork, dug up the early 1990s rave scene. He scores massive coolness-points by attempting to take us back to the wonderful time when giant rave parties swept across the UK and jungle was turned into the new folk devil thanks to the tabloids (as hinted to in the hilarious interlude-sections). The fast forwarded spoken word snippets and piano pieces on “Hot Fuzz” throws me back to The Prodigy's Experience-era, as does “Planet Earth” with its ragga vocals and “Out of Space”ish tune. The album features a couple of highly impressive collaborations - “Failsafe” with London Elektricity and “Judgement Day” with Cyantific + I-Kay – which are both quite stellar. Compared to Supersized and most Hospital-related stuff nowdays Rave Digger sounds more strongly aimed at a hardcore party-factor, but without being embarrasing in any (happy hardcore)way. This probably won't rewrite any rules, but danm it's fun. A few things are keeping me from giving it this year’s first 4.5. He should definitely have chosen a more swinging track to end the album with as “Amen Corner” suffers heavily from 'melancholy d’nb-conclusion syndrome'. “Planet Earth” should have been at least two minutes longer and the Netsky collaboration “Tonight” could probably have been even better if they excluded the Daft Punk’esque vocals (the breakdown in the middle is suspiciously similar to DP’s “One More Time” come to think of it). Expect the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 to be brought back from the sewer again. Repetitive beats are here to enslave your soul and corrupt democracy.