The Crystal Method have been around for fucking ever (the early ’90s) but the beauty of being in an electronic outfit is that it is acceptable to change your stripes every few years as the dance music zeitgeist shifts so you can remain relevant and not become a heritage act.
Emulator, the opening track to the Las Vegas two-pieces eighth album is a banger. The title may be a self-effacing hat-tip to heavy bass house artists like Harvard Bass and Deadmau5 who the track clearly references. Like any main-room charger the track is punctuated by bass drops and indiscernible MC mumbles: “Baby got do now…” Maybe?
The dark ravey atmosphere of the record is seductive but the tendency, like on the song Over It featuring Dia Frampton, to turn to dubstep dulls the impact of these lamely derivative tracks.
However, it’s those massive drops followed by ass-wobbling bass that may not get you kudos from music reviewers but it certainly gets people’s arses shaking at your shows and likewise other DJs dropping your tracks.
This album also drags into focus that it isn’t just the UK and Europe that are having a rave revival. The US does bangers with the best of them and The Crystal Method’s collaboration with young Atlanta producer La Castle Vania, named Storm The Castle, is the kind of track you can imagine ravers overdosing on juice to.
While The Crystal Method’s aforementioned homeland connection is a sick one, the song they do with washed-out US country singer LeAnn Rimes, Grace, is a shocker. Depressingly, there is a modulated synth that sounds like a violin so that Rimes’ nasal warble doesn’t sound too out of place.
Although inconsistent this is one hell of a rave album and Emulator is a killer tune.
BY DAN WATT
Best Track: Emulator
If You Like These, You’ll Like This: Stay True HARVARD BASS, Trans-Love-Energies DEATH IN VEGAS, Album Title Goes Here DEADMAU5
In A Word: Bangerz
