Listening to Krewella's debut full-length album, one has to marvel at how diverse the sonic palette for dance song composition has become. At one time, the average dance song was so simple; there were a finite number of digital sounds to employ, and technology was limited. Now though, new sounds, new technology and new ideas are appearing daily, and composers/producers are also finding ways to re-purpose “old” stuff too. To get an idea of just how far dance music has evolved over the last quarter-century, one need only listen to Get Wet.
On Get Wet, a directory of sounds once thought to be the exclusive provinces of genres including punk, metal, dubstep, pop, hip hop and electronic dance pop sounds ranging in vintage from as old as 2 Unlimited to as new as yesterday all get blended together with audacious ease into a mix geared to fit into a Top 40 playlist and, astoundingly, the results both hold together and are capable of hooking listeners with the raw efficiency of an infectious disease.
That set of images may seem a little melodramatic in theory, but listening to the album proves how appropriate they are. On songs like “We Go Down,” “Come And Get It,” “Ring Of Fire” (which bears no creative debt to Johnny Cash at all) and “Killin' It,” Krewella cross-wires some chemically driven Top 40-intended strains with a healthy dose of dubstep and some counter-culturally approved bad attitudes (check out lyrics like “Every second we are taking back the power/ On the run 'til we get a fucking answer”) which could simultaneously appeal to the little kids misbehaving in the back of mom's minivan after a day at daycare as easily as it could appeal to the problem child who feels she has outgrown dance classes and the college co-ed hitting clubs and downing every leisure amphetamine she can get her hands on; it's just that perfectly open-ended and accessible. It doesn't hurt either that the beats are solid and fresh, the production is so new that the paint on it doesn't even feel like it's dry yet, and the vocals rattled out by Jahan and Yasmine Yousaf are so simple that kids of all ages can have them memorized within three listens flat.
Looking at Get Wet from all those different angles, the album seems guaranteed to mark the emergence of Krewella the new hot commodity in the Top 40 club scene, but the coolest part about this act for those who have already been club rats for a while is how perfectly packaged and well-rounded the music comes. Unlike so many other acts who appear on the Top 40 club stage and make an impression quickly but really just end up re-inventing the wheel for the duration of their fifteen minutes in the spotlight (LMFAO anyone?), Krewella actually take a tonne of different sounds and intermingle them so evenly that they present as new musical hybrids which could very easily be taken and be developed even further – maybe even into all-new sub-genres of club music. That possibility guarantees that it'll be interesting to see what happens with this album when it hits the clubs, and how audiences respond to it.
Artist:
www.krewella.net/
www.myspace.com/krewellamusic
www.facebook.com/krewella
www.twitter.com/Krewella
Download:
Krewella – Get Wet – “Come & Get It” – [mp3]
Krewella – Get Wet – “We Go Down” – [mp3]
Album:
Get Wet will be released on September 24, 2013 via Columbia/Sony Music. Pre-order it here on Amazon .
