Panacea/Cativo
The Hardest Tour on Planet Earth
Position Chrome
Hooray for superlatives! I suspect that both Panacea and Cativo couldn’t hold a candle to a live set by the mighty Motörhead, but that’s OK, perhaps they value their hearing too much.
However, their approximations of “hard” leave me cold. While this record rocks hard (very, very hard), I have a hard time justifying this indulgent collection of tracks, which hearken back to techstep circa ‘96. The breakcore innovations of DJ Scud, Somatic Responses, and Venetian Snares make this sound terribly, terribly dated. The fuzzed out basslines, the monolithic two-stepage, and occasional smears of noise sound just don’t rock me like classic Ed Rush and No U Turn stuff used to. Their addition of live-sounding drums on tracks like “Power of Darkness” and (I think) guitars is a nice touch, but the diva vocals on “State Of Extasy” really kill any momentum they’d built up. The Hardest Tour on Earth is great for about an hour of mindless dancing around your bedroom, but for anything more than that, I’d usher you over to Ambush and Zhark.
Position Chrome; http://www.position-chrome.net/pc, http://brainwashed.com/panacea/
