Out of left field comes an Austrailian duo circa 2011. You may know them from “Antidote” or “Internet Friends,” and those are the songs that you should really stick to when it comes to Rob Swire and Gareth McGrillen’s work. These two gentlemen have worked with some large names like Swedish House Mafia, Skrillex and Nero. Their second release as Knife Party, Rage Valley, dishes out four tracks; the same number as was on the free EP they released in 2011, 100% No Modern Talking.
The EP does bring quite a eclectic vibe but, when compared to the club bangers that they are known for helping to produce, it pales in comparison. The first track “Rage Valley,” should not have been given the same title as the album. The track is the least ear-digestible track on the EP. The Seventies disco vibe mixed in with the hard-hitting dubstep vibe we expect from their mixes together like peanut butter and computer video cards. What a tasty treat. If I were to give this to a DJ playing a four-hour set, I’d tell him to spin it when everyone’s wasted and unable to really give any thought to what they are listening to. I’m quite sure this track would be more enjoyable with an altered state of mind. Sober, I can’t even drive to it; I keep finding myself fast-forwarding the track in hopes for something more.
“Centipede,” brings us the same dark vibe that we would rock with Borgore, Skrillex or Ry Legit. The music of the track is missing; it’s concentration focusing on artistic delivery of information on how dangerous a centipede can be in combination with the drop leaves me to think that Knife Party can just follow an equation over actually making great music.
When it comes to a “Bonfire,” I don’t think of combining Jamaican vocals with dubstep. This also feels like they were following an equation over a better delivery of music. What happened to giving us something to put on repeat in the same way that you gave us “Internet Friends?” On the opposite side of the Atlantic, I do feel that this track will fit in with what they are playing right now. As we can see with most music that comes to the US, we like to twist things a little differently before it hits mainstream. In fact, I feel that the remixes of this album may be more successful than any of the originals.
The Hail Mary of a last track, “Sleaze (feat. Mistajam)” does deliver us a track that we can rock our amazing feet-work to on the dance floor. Is it as heavy as a Skrillex track? No, but it will give us a reason to buy the album. I just see these four tracks as filler for a club set; when you’ve run out of hard-hitting shit to play, this is the B-team which is forgettable enough that it won't have people walking out, but not the stuff that people show up to a party for either. No one will be asking the name of any of these tracks, and it will be lost the moment something better comes along.
Artist:
www.knifeparty.com/
www.facebook.com/knifeparty
www.soundcloud.com/knifepartyinc
www.twitter.com/#!/knifepartyinc
Album:
The Rage Valley EP is out now. Buy it here on Amazon .
