Neonlight - Vanity Fair LP [Blackout Music]

Welcome to my ninth album write-up! I apologize in advance for the wall of text that is about to follow (editor's note: I don't actually apologize for it, that's just my standard intro at this point). Scroll down for a TL;DR on the LP.

Background

While I fully believe that Neonlight are among the more commonly known Neurofunk artists, I'm also absolutely certain that there's still a lot of fun new background information about them that I can bring to the (neon-)light here. So let's start our journey on this very special episode of the /r/dnb album spotlight series, shall we? Or should I say, neonspotlight?

I'm going to have a lot of fun writing this, I can feel it.

Neonlittle

The common story of most of the DnB duos I cover on here goes something like this: At first they both try doing "that music thing" on their own, then they meet their partner at a party or through mutual contacts and finally they decide to combine their talents. Not Neonlight though. The Leipzig-based duo consisting of Jakob Thomser and Tobias Jakubczyk have known each other since their literal childhood! Not even exaggerating here. Since their dads played in a band together when they were kids, little Jakob and Tobi were actual playground mates in the good ol' Vogtland of Southern Saxony, Germany. However, while they met up real early in their lives and were basically inseparable ever since, they still took on quite different paths. For instance, while Jakob had always been a fan of electronic music, with the likes of Blümchen and Dune being early favourites, Tobias was more of a metalhead at first. Jakob was also the one who made those first connections to the local DnB scene: At 14 he already went to his first DnB party! However he didn't go because he was already a fan of the music or anything, no no, just like most stories involving teenagers of course the actual reason was a girl he fancied at the time. The thing with the girl didn't work out after all, but halfway through the night he heard this super-danceable DnB tune that immediately made him fall in love. Well, it only happened after a bunch of other tunes that he didn't care about, but still, the love was real!

Around 1998 Jakob and Tobi not only started raving and crate digging at vinyl shops together, at some point they even started organising events, with Jakob doing his thing in Dresden with local crews like Fat Fenders and High Finesse and Tobi throwing down some sick parties in Plauen. Nearly two decades ago, in 2003, they then started working on music together! Since both were in different cities, Jakob being in Dresden and Tobi in Berlin, they only managed to meet up for a weekend once a quarter or so, but when they did, they always stayed up until the latest of (neon)-late hours to make those snare hit just a little bit better. At first it was Tobi driving over due to Jakob's superior computer equipment, but when Tobi got a proper sound system in his flat it was Jakob that carpooled over, carrying the PC in his trusty blue IKEA bag. At some point during this time, they both started their studies: Jakob moved to Leipzig to study Percussions at the local University of Music and Theatre and Tobi stayed in Berlin for a little while longer to go to school for Physiotherapy. Wait, what?

Well, Tobi was actually hugely invested in becoming a professional athlete! Even after an accident came between him and realising his full athletic potential, he was still very much invested in all things sports and wanted to make a career out of it. Which is why his next career stop saw him joining Jakob in Leipzig to study Sports Science! A little fun fact before we pivot away from this topic for now: His brother Lucas Jakubczyk is actually a quite big name in sports, winning multiple silver and bronze medals in Athletics European Championships and even reaching the final for the World Championship. So the Jakubczyk's are just a very sports-interested family in general!

New-on Lights On The Block

Let's jump a few years into the distant past that is 2007. I can haz cheezeburger memes are the hottest stuff on the market, people were using ICQ and MSN to talk to each other online and seemingly every other pop song used a whole lot of Autotune. In the midst of all of that, Tobi and Jakob finally started putting their music out there, with Tuning and Creative Wax on Berlin-based label No!Breaks Rec. being the first official release. Even though they were still operating as separate entities Nize5ive (Tobi) and Pitch'n'Sulphur (Jakob), they were already showing the scene who's boss. Two years later they realised that, while unique, the names are a little hard to remember and/or write, after which they rebranded themselves once more to the name we all know and love today: Neonlight!

Their debut under this quite literally shiny new name, The Blackout with Kiro (what a prophetic track title), paired up with the Apex remix of their tune Epidemic, came out on Trust In Music in the same year. Since the exact timeline of these very early times seem to be a bit lost to the sands of time, I can't tell you how exactly we got to the next point, but in 2010 the duo got in touch with the one and only Optiv, who liked a previous remix of theirs so much that he gave them the chance to remix one of his own tunes, Run It Red, later released on Red Light. 2011 was the year that things really kicked into high gear though. Releases on PRSPCT, Close2Death, Bad Taste, a remix for State Of Mind, a whole bunch of collaborations with the likes of Aeph and the late Hedj and gigs all over Europa and even the US, all in one year! How is that possible, you ask? Well, 2011 was the year Tobi and Jakob decided that this music thing was going well enough that it's worth a try to pursue it full-time! What about the studies that Tobi and Jakob were still doing, you continue asking? Well, Jakob was basically in the finishing stages of his studies already, graduating in 2012, and Tobi was spending most of his study time working on the Neonlight project anyway, so he continued doing just that. The success kept on coming: After remixing Jade on his EP on the legendary Lifted Music, they didn't just develop their Lifted relationship further and further, with their Receptor collaboration landing on the label's From Roots To Wings compilation and them releasing the full solo EPs Byte Bites Bit and Power Hour on there later, they also got to be one of the first acts to release on this brand new label that Jade had just founded called Eatbrain.

While their DnB career was popping off left, right and centre, they still had some more creative juices in them that they wanted to get out. So around the time Jakob finished his studies they sat down together with their mate Florian Förster, also known as Wintermute and decided to start their own sound design company: leed:audio! Over the years they didn't just provide pleasing, fun and uplifting background music for an animated stories about the philosophy behind the founder of a certain lotion company or why the pipes of a local piping company are designed the way they are, they also created soundtracks for various different games like the puzzle platformer Schein, the mobile game The Unstoppables or the educational app The Wunderglasses! This whole side project of them wasn't just a great way to engage in completely different creative areas of music production and of course earn some extra money, it also proved to be helpful for the music under Neonlight! For instance, the experience they gained while working on the more orchestral soundtrack of Schein laid the foundation for the orchestral intros of Neon City et al. But I'm getting ahead of myself here.

My Galactic Tailspin

Let's go back to 2013 again for now. While the world was still dealing with the weird anticlimactic energy that only the Year After The World Was Supposed To End™️ can have, there was one collective who used that time to channel this energy into a platform for the absolute best Neurofunk around. That collective consisted of Micha Heyboer, Milan Heyboer and Rene Verdult, probably better known as the legendary dutch trio Black Sun Empire. Of course, that platform for Neurofunk was Blackout Music, previously known as their mostly self-release label Black Sun Empire Recordings. Why am I telling you all this?

Well, since Neonlight were already in contact with the dutch trio after their remix of Eraser on the From The Shadows LP in 2012, they were also one of the first ones to be asked to join this brand new label! To be more specific, it was their contribution to the absolutely massive Variations On Black remix compilation, a remix of Brainfreeze, that kicked off the whole Blackout Era™️ for them. After another remix for State Of Mind on the label, 2014 was the time for them to finally release their own solo material on there: the Sidus EP! Not just that, the EP was also the kickoff of the buildup to their debut album My Galactic Tale! It was part of the same story at least, the actual release date album was still a while away. In the meantime we got plenty of other new content though: Remixes for their very own hero of their youth Skynet and Hybrid Minds, a debut on the massive RAM Records, the five-track Edge EP in collaboration with their leed:audio partner Wintermute, lots of great things to keep audiences interested!

Then 2016 came along and the proper album phase began with the Triple B / Bad Omen double single, before the full release later in the year. From here on it gets extremely nostalgic for me, as my first encounter with the duo's music came in the form of their Let It Roll 2017 set. Since that was my very first year at Let It Roll and I was still kind of a newbie when it came to knowing the artists and who to check out live, I sadly missed out on watching the set live. However, after the festival I was in quite the euphoric "I must listen to everything DnB" mood and to my luck, Forbidden Society decided to upload this recording of Neonlight's LiR set just 4 days after the festival. I ate it up. Every single track of this set evokes intense memories of that Let It Roll now, even though I haven't even seen it live, and obviously basically all of the tracks they played came out during this time. Microbots, Bad Omen, Queen Beth V, Tailspin, Triple B, too many bangers to mention really. 2016 didn't just see the release of the album though, in this and the following year the duo also gave us the infamous Tarkin, remixes for Rido, Billain, L 33, Stunnah and, oh, almost forgot, Noisia. Clearly that's too many remixes, so another bit later the turns were tabled and the biggest names in Neurofunk came together to remix tunes from the album, on My Galactic Tale Revisited.

Speaking of remixes though, we can't forget about the reworks they did for Annix's Axshun and Celldweller's Louder Than Words in 2018. Especially Axshun is simply timeless in my eyes. That same year also gave us another return to non-remix work in the form of the Passenger - Row 1 EP, with collaborators IHR, Receptor and Hezen in tow.

Diascoping Mechanisms

A bit more than 10 years after their very first releases together, Tobi and Jakob found themselves once again annoyed at how little control they were having over those, mostly because the labels they had been releasing with during that time were now basically dead. Not only did they not see any money from some of these, the earliest stuff also wasn't available on most streaming places. So they set out to remaster some of their most classic material, like System Error, The Frozen Tape and even Computer Music, Basso Continuo and Power Hour. Obviously those still needed a new home and thus their own label, DIASCOPE, was born in 2019! They knew they didn't want to do just remasters forever and ever though, so they started reaching out to talents they were already connected with, like certified Austrian bad boy Manta and Münster-based duo BorkerBrothers, and put out a few calls for demos to get in touch with even more artists for their newcomer compilation series Constellations, resulting in releases by Ripple, Nebulate and Abstractonia.

Speaking of the newcomer duo Ripple, there were of course also a whole slew of great releases outside of the remasters series too, including collaborations with Virus Syndicate, State Of Mind, Black Sun Empire, Dub Elements and, well, Ripple. Arguably the biggest one though has got to be their two-track contribution to the Let It Roll 2019 opening show! With their two extremely cinematic and powerful Neurofunk slappers Wormhole Part 1 and 2 Jakob and Tobi pretty much provided the soundtrack to the whole last section of the monumental firework-filled show. What a career highlight that must have been!

Sadly, even for quite big artists the pandemic put a vehement stop to most of the usual revenue streams, so like a lot of their peers, they had to think of new ways of being able to pay rent, which lead to them starting up their very own Patreon in Fall 2020. Sure, there were some singles here and there, a double single with State Of Mind and a contribution to the Lifecycle EP series, but things were already starting to point towards the long-awaited sophomore album. To be able to fully focus on the process without having to worry too much about the monetary logistics of it all, they applied for a grant from Initiative Musik, which basically distributes funds from the German Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and Media to artists and festival organisers for specific projects. Like an album! Soon enough, their request was accepted and off they went.

Before we dive deeper into the results of that process, allow me to share some of my left-over Neonlight puns with you:

neon-right
neon-tight
neon-height
Neon-slightly
they took neon-flight

Resources

Track Breakdown

Congrats, you've made it to the Track Breakdown!

1. Vanity Fair

Step right up folks, this you'll want to see! Welcome, to Vanity Fair. Not the magazine, this is a literal Fair of Vanity. We've got all kinds of illustrous characters roaming around, but let me show you around the area first!

With a continuously back-and-forth looping riff, smooth drums that could probably go well to some loungey jazz and a silly yet catchy trumpet melody announcing our arrival, we cautiously walk into this unusual circus of personalities, one step after the other. However, this is no usual show. Behind every corner lurks a different kind of horror, one more scary than the other. One after the other, they all come out to ogle at us. On a first glance, you wouldn't expect these people to be very harmful at all, with their everyday neighbourhood looks. You still feel uneasy about them though, and rightly so. While there's this zany steppy slightly off-grid groove following you around with each step, your heart sinks deeper and deeper. Until suddenly the cages that hold these freaks of society open up and all the hell breaks loose!

A great introduction into what awaits us on this album: Uniquely weird but still way too catchy melodies, cinematic goodness oozing out of every part of the production, just exactly what I want from Neonlight. Let's see which characters await us, shall we?

2. Scarface (feat. Black Sun Empire)

Oh damn, Neonlight are not holding back one bit with this evil character roster are they? Right from the get-go we are presented with the musical representation of none other than the homicidal drug lord Scarface, whose life might make for some quality cinema, but who wouldn't necessarily be on my list of people I want to meet in a dark alley way. Which might sound like a weirdly specific example, but that's exactly what the intro to this collaboration with Blackout label honchos Black Sun Empire feels like. You've got this feeling of dread slowly but surely creeping up on you, almost as if you are one of the unsuspecting victims in Jaws just waiting to be ripped apart, any second now. I know, wrong movie, but you get what I mean. Your heartbeat's racing faster and faster until your senses begin to fade out. You can hear someone pulling out a knife, but before you can react, a hooded figure jumps out of the shadows and the wild nerve-wrecking chase begins. It's times like these that make me wish I had seen Scarface, so I could make specific references to it now.

Anyway, after being bombarded with a Neurofunk groove that I kind of want to call unhinged, but in a good way, the quintet pump up the hype levels a few hundred levels in a matter of seconds, masterfully segueing us over to a more out-of-control version of the melody. Not only does that part make me want to jump out of my seat and dance, I also now actually feel like some crazy clown is chasing me.

Exactly the type of stuff I love to hear from Neonlight!

3. Tragedian

Phew, it seems like we have escaped the cocaine-fueled monster. We turn back around and see someone else standing in front of us though: Lanky, plain black clothes, quite harmless looking actually. They says they're an actor, or more specifically a Tragedian, someone who specialises in tragedies. To the very delicately produced backdrop of analogue-sounding vibey synths reminiscent of the latest output of fellow German producer Misanthrop, wobbling away on various different bass rhythms, the actor tells us all about how he ended up in this place. It starts off harmless enough, with them going to acting school when they felt they had no direction in life and falling in love with the craft, the instrumental mindlessly bobbing away. As the Tragedian drops more and more clues into why exactly he favours the tragic parts so much more than any others (let's just say he's quite the misanthrope himself), the instrumental picks up the pace more and more too. For the grand finale, the moody synths of the first drop dramatically turn a few octaves higher, before we fall back to our minimal wobbly bassline.

While very different from the usual Neonlight sound, they really make this more moody sound work here. Really lovely production on display, especially the progressive nature of the ever-changing composition is just lovely.

4. Denunziant

Well, that fella was certainly weird, I'm glad we got away from them. I wonder what strange personalities await us in this street? "Eww", we hear it grunt back from the shadows. It dawns on us. Ahh, that must be the Denunziant. Everybody knows someone like this one. The grandma sitting at her window all day long, just waiting for someone to park their car slightly wrong so they can immediately call the police. The neighbour who sits with the ear to the wall until they hear a sound so they can report you to the landlords. Generally not the most pleasant kind of people. Tobi and Jakob try to convey these exact feelings of unpleasantness with almost depressed-sounding growling basses going back and forth with a sound reminiscent of a car engine not wanting to start up, with a new strangely distorted element coming in in every section, all of it marching on a heavy-hitting stepper beat. Incredibly weighty tune, surely so it's mirroring the weight of our hate towards the Denunziants in our day-to-day life, with a ton of interesting sound design woven into it.

5. Hero Of My Youth

The next character is the one we've been looking forward to the most, it's the Hero Of My Youth! While hyped, we have to acknowledge that meeting your heroes is always weird. You build up this mental image of an unstoppable force bulldozing any problem life might throw at them, of this flawless person that you want to be like when you grow up, but that's obviously just assembled from the bits of media content about them that one has consumed when they were an impressionable child. Cynicism and storytelling aside for a second, that idealistic image of the ferocious hero that will save the day was the the kind of energy that Neonlight seems to have used as an idea for the track. Absolutely massive basses that will make any room's walls shake until it registers on the city's seismographs, larger than life itself. Even when our hero isn't displaying Superman levels of strength though, he's still fit enough to outlast any single one of his enemies, here represented by the less in-your-face and more enduring energy of the continuously looping melody leading us to the breakdown.

After thinking long and hard about it, we did end up meeting our hero after all. They were not even that far off from what we imagined! Sure, they weren't quite as fast as they used to, roughly half the speed we would say, but even their slower punches were still impressively strong. And sure, their endurance wasn't quite up to speed anymore either, but still quite good for their age! In case it wasn't obvious what I was trying to do there: The second drop switches into an equally massive Half-Time version of the first drop, before jumping into the usual full-speed lower energy part again, this time a little shorter than before.

Ridiculously massive tune that will tear up any dancefloor.

6. Bullhead

Our lovely time with our Hero was cut short though. Halfway through our conversation we were distracted by someone hitting the pipes in the adjacent room rhythmically, as if telling us to hurry up already. So we headed over, shortly after which we were greeted by a choir of strange voices repeatedly chanting a name that we couldn't quite make out. A person emerges and immediately starts to perform a hectic dance routine, with a fast-paced continually flickering rhythm on top of a jumpy set of drums being blasted out as its soundtrack. Once the person exhausted itself, which wasn't too long after, they ask us what we thought of the show. Confused, we suggest maybe changing some things around. That turned out to be the wrong thing to say. This performer was a proper Bullhead and took the criticism very badly. He immediately started getting hot-headed about how we don't understand the craft, waving the pipe we heard earlier in their hand dangerously close to our faces. Not necessarily angry, but certainly not understanding either. He composes himself for a second and then starts performing his hectic routine once again, to show us how wrong we were. We sneaked away before we got sucked too deep into this performer's rabbit hole.

In case it didn't shine through in the paragraph above, this track is one hell of a strange one. Also very fun though. Very unique vocal melodies, a straight-forward Jump Up-y lead, drums that go from two-step to high-octane rolling breaks in the blink of an eye and a second drop that switches it up into some quite techy territory.

7. Desire (feat. flowanastasia)

Make way for the most sinister track of the album: Desire! More of a feeling than a specific character this time. With Ukrainian-born, Toronto-based vocalist flowanastasia on the eerie vocals introducing us into this world, it quickly becomes clear that this isn't a pleasant kind of Desire, this one is more of a Desire to break free from horribly constrictive circumstances kind. There's multiple ways of interpreting her catchy lyrics here, from criticising bad working conditions to living in a toxic relationship, but no matter which one you choose, you'll get the same feeling of existential dread while listening. Of course, Neonlight know how to perfectly reflect this mood in the instrumental too. An atmospheric intro with church bells announcing a huge impending doom and a short yet moody rhythmic melody paired up with distantly echoing themes builds everything up, until it all fades out and only the rhythm remains, on top of a 4x4 beat. Slowly but surely the main wall of bass starts bubbling up from the depths below until it surfaces and devours everything in its path. This growl goes back and forth with a more melodic, fast-paced response, while also switching back and forth between more simple steppy drums and a whirlwind of breaks. This tornado of drums returns in full force for the second drop, now even during the bass waves, making for one hell of a auditory tsunami. A feast for the senses in every possible way.

8. Self-Exposer

Speaking of concepts that are less in-your-face than you might think of first, let's talk about Self-Exposer. Surely, this will be about some sleezy pervert type of person, you think. You thought wrong! So did I, to be fair, until the person started talking about all the things they have in their possession, their house, their boat, their phone, their shoes, just like in the old German Sparkasse ad! In other words, this track is more about the nowadays ever-present insidious materialistic "exposing of one's self" that's happening all over the internet, a constant need for validation and attention that is fed by showcasing only the best of the best parts of their own lives on social media. Well, that became weirdly philosophical quickly. Let's talk about how Neonlight translated these concepts into a DnB track instead! Not only is the general vibe of the track less "banger" and more "subdued, creepy and atmospheric", just like this self-exposing is less in-your-face, its also very relentless, only allowing short breaks in between and continuously evolving in its rhythm, melodies and composition, mirroring the constant need to keep up with everyone that social media so effectively instills in humanity. A more chill, but definitely still just as interestingly produced track.

9. Triumph

By this point you might have realised that this album isn't just a showcase of negative character archetypes in our lives, it's also a show about all the strange emotional phenomenons that plague our lives. Wait, but what negative thing could there be about Triumph? It starts off triumphant enough after all, with big synths blaring loudly across the room, as if announcing a hugely important win of sorts. However, it then drops into this minimal progressively spiraling bop that's just kind of minding its own business. Huh. Well, every triumphant day, every happy ending has the day after that's just business as usual. Philosophical Bojack quotes aside though, this track is one hell of a great vibe. The production levels are off the charts, the way the song evolves all throughout its constantly steppy wubbing is masterful, these melodies, while simple at times, stick in your head like crazy, and yet everything sounds very much like a Neonlight track. Very different kind of vibe for them, but they definitely pulled it off.

10. Mammon

While Mammon might not be a word everyone is familiar with, I just came back from an intensive googling session too, it only takes a few seconds of listening to the track to see where Tobi and Jakob are taking us on this one. Sounds of an endless stream of coins falling down, rooms illuminated only by brightly coloured neonlight, literal cha-ching cash register sound effects, yep, this one is about money. To save you the google: Mammon is a biblical word for money, or more specifically the debasing influence of material wealth, often imagined as a demon of sorts. Neonlight imagines this concept in a modern world, where gambling addiction sadly still is a thing, with a lot of companies basing their whole business strategy on people not being able to say no to just one more round. After being drowned in a wave of gambling sound effects in the buildup, we drop into this hugely nasty stepper drop that makes me want to scrunch up my face real bad every single time. As the octaves change into an even more sinister tone, we hear the player screaming out "NOOOO" in agony, but soon enough, the fun bright sounds of the one-armed bandit return and we continue on with our Rumpelstiltskin skank around the fire. For the second half we slow down to Half-time, further and further until the Mammon consumes our soul whole.

11. Corset (feat. Holly Day)

Our next topic is the metaphorical, and sometimes actual, Corset put onto us, through either unrealistic beauty standards or just straight-up sexism telling people how to dress, speak and behave. To give this topic some additional gravitas, they got in touch with talented R&B singer Holly Day, who lays down one hell of a performance, especially for someone who seems to be a completely new name to at least this scene. While Holly walks the fine line of smooth yet angry at the status quo vocals, with lyrics about people being dismissive about her pain, urging her to just shut up and cast the shadows away, the instrumental builds up what has got to be one of the most epic atmospheres of the album, so far at least. It's not epic for nothing though. Once Holly gives the signal of You're gonna snap, a truly magnificent bassline is unleashed on the listener. In true Neonlight fashion, it isn't just massively earthquake-causing, the composition surrounding it is also so damn perfectly arranged that the whole thing is extremely danceable and catchy. The way they reintroduce Holly's vocals is just so damn perfect too, it is just so damn hype!

I just absolutely love it when Neonlight goes into that dramatic epic scale sound, they are just so good at it! Pair that up with some really well-performed vocals and I can't help but feel like this will be my favourite of the album.

12. Kinski

While we've talked about a lot of human concepts here, we've still got one more character to talk about before the end: Kinski! For those who don't know, Klaus Kinski was a prolific German actor that gained something of a cult following during his active years. While appearing in a lot of movies certainly helped, what really set him apart from his colleagues were his aggressive outbursts and "volatile" personality. You never knew what you would get from him when interacting with him, whether on set or in an interview. For better or worse. Mostly worse. To quote his long-time colleague Werner Herzog, "one of the greatest actors of the century, but also a monster and a great pestilence." Fittingly, this track is like the perfect soundtrack for a Kinski outburst compilation. The star of the composition is the honestly unhinged sounding metallic groove that gets weirder and weirder the longer the track goes on. The extremely clear but obviously already deranged melody is strapped upon on a simple danceable beat at first, but soon enough it escapes from its shackles of reasonability and starts bashing the listener on the head beat by beat by beat. In the second drop the drums are let loose so much that your head can't even follow any further, making your head shake around violently if it tried to nod along to it. Extremely well-produced and straight-up effective tune that I won't get out of my head anytime soon.

13. Ignored (feat. Lucaciu)

No one likes to be Ignored. Whether someone is just not listening to you in a conversation, they are ghosting you on a dating app or they are ignoring your pleas of help, it's never a great feeling. What does feel great, however, is this experimental kind of track right here! With Antonio Lucaciu's impressive display of Saxophone mastery, it almost feels like the biblical snake trying to get you give in to your darkest desires already, while the instrumental tries its best to hold itself together. While the moody rhythms go all over the place, they never feel out of place, leaving the listener in a state of paralysed awe. In the end, the saxophone takes over the track, before fading out into a beautiful but still very glitchy outro.

14. Freedom

After all this weird venturing through human characteristics and emotions and philosophies, we have now finally managed to get to the end. Freedom awaits us! Remember when I said I like it when Neonlight goes epic? Well, good news for anyone who agreed, because this LP closer goes in! After a slow atmospheric buildup, meandering a little through the ups and downs that we have experienced today, a little melody starts gaining speed and soon enough, it's lift-off and a gargantuan wobbly synth catapults out us from this circus straight into outer space. Another switchup stops us dead in our tracks, switching over to a groove on top of some very metallic snares, only for it to to return once more to the ludicrous speeds of earlier one more time. That's not quite it yet though, we still got one more high-speed chase to go. In the second drop the faint melody of the buildup is smacked right on top of the massively wobbly synth, resulting in an extremely goosebump-worthy moment. Absolutely ridiculous track to end on, perfectly rounding up this journey. Freedom, fuck yeah.

Conclusion

I've already written way too much about this album, so I'll try to keep this short.

As I hoped for, this is a very Neonlight-y album. You've got the wonky steppers with grooves straight out of a mental hospital, you've got the grandiose cinematic bangers, there's even some really well-executed experimentational stuff going on here, while still distinctly part of the core Neonlight sound. It's not just a collection of bangers with extremely high production level though, you can really feel how much time they've spent coming up with concepts for characters or emotions they wanted to explore, which they then all very effectively conveyed.

My favourites have got to be, in order of appearance: Scarface, because it's just such a straight-up Blackout Neonlight banger that I can't help but love it, Bullhead, due to just how fun this Neuro-Jump Up hybrid is every single time and for the amazing second drop, Desire, since its incredibly ridiculous drop causes my face to contort more than the bitterest of lemons ever could, and Corset, because it's the absolute biggest tune on the album and I can't get enough of it.

Impressively diverse clean production, paired with fun and creative storytelling everywhere, exactly what I had hoped for. A true (Neon-)delight.