ShockOne - Organism Algorithm [Dark Machine Records]

Welcome to my seventeenth album write-up! Been a while, eh? I apologize in advance for the wall of text that is about to follow. Scroll down for a TL;DR on the LP.

Background

I know, I know, you probably thought It's All Over since I Disappeared from this whole full-length thing for a while, Crucify Me, for all I care! However, when I heard that Karl Thomas, better known to the electronic music public as ShockOne, was putting out another long player, I felt The Calling to return in my bones. It's On, baby!

With a discography spanning back almost to the Age of Enlightenment, you'd think the musical Light coming out of the producer that calls Perth his Home would be Dying after so many Cycles around The Sun, but you couldn't be more wrong with that assumptions, so, uhm, Don't Think that! Don't You Know he has been creating sonic experiences that not only make you think about multiple Universes, Chaos Theory, Polygons and the Dark Machines controlling and Collecting all our Hardwired Thoughts, but can also simultaneously set both your lungs and your Heart On Fire with Cyclones of Big Bouncy, Harmonizing Lazerbeams not just getting your Body Movin' but also making you Lose Control Til the break of Dawn, all this time? With some of his tunes, you're even left Thinkin About just how Good This Dubstep Is, even if you're a Chronic True Believer of the drums and the basses. I've Said Woah quite a few times while checking out his full, in my opinion still too Underloved musical catalogue!

Before we take a look at the surely Higher Rush inducing new body work, however, I will of course give you a proper Run-down of the events leading up to all of this. So don't get Further Away From Me, even if you're not yet Ready To Go, it's time to Follow Me down the rabbit hole of the not so Simple Man they call ShockOne!

Karly Beginnings (1982 - 2005)

With his mum, the bass player, and the musical triple threat of guitarist, sound engineer and PA company owner that is his dad responsible for his upbringing, it really isn't that hard to see why Karl Thomas got into this whole music thing. First off, the Thomasses made sure that his kindergarten after-hour curriculum included plenty of Pink Floyd listening lessons, and when that well dried up, they brought in the likes of The Police, Midnight Oil, T-bone Burnett and Alan Parsons. Second off, he became a roadie, helping out his dad at all sorts of PA jobs, basically as soon as he could walk. Third off, Karl was gifted a drum kit of his own at the ripe old age of four. This musical Thomasterplan only started to stumble when young Karl traded his drum sticks for the life of balling at age 10 and became obsessed with becoming a professional basketball player. While he did actually pursue that until he played at a state level, he luckily (for us) soon found his way back to drumming. Only one thing remained constant: his parents' full unambigious support.

As his tastes developed, he started to enjoy the grungier, rockier music the 90s had brought to the table, but everything changed when his cousin brought over The Prodigy's Experience on tape that one fateful day. In no time, he went from agreeing to listen to it because "there’s a cat meowing in this song" to having a whole musical epiphany. With legendary Australian radio station triple j pushing him even further down that treacherous path, this snowballed into a whole-on obsession for all things electronic, turning his life upside down. So, like, right side up? Having grown up in the small Western Australian town of Esperance, Karl might have been rather far away from the big arenas or any significant scenes at first, but as fate would have it, he and his family would eventually relocate to the cultural hub that is Perth! While the metropolis has apparently a bit of an isolationist reputation and is said to lag behind other big cities of the world when it comes to emerging musical scenes, it still proved to be the perthect place for Karl to discover another, even more energetic genre: Drum and Bass!

However, even though he had already picked up on the fast percussions and the wobbly basses at Skate demos he attended, he needed to hear the carnage in a different setting to become fully hooked. In the mood for some good ol' Trance or House or whatever, the then 16-to-17-year-old and his friends went out to one of their usual warehouse raves, but this time was different. Instead, they were about to witness the sonic recreation of the end of the world, orchestrated by the likes of El Hornet, Greg Packer and, once fully converted to the faster tempos, even Bad Company, Ed Rush & Optical and Konflict. Especially certified classics Messiah and The Nine pulled him in and there was basically no turning back from that point on anymore.

While both the drums and the basses had his full attention as a listener, his own musical prowess still focused more on the former rather than the latter. Throughout a rather hard time in high-school, he carried on drumming his heart out, both in private and at school. Sure, his rebellious spirit lead to him failing a couple of music classes and specialist programs, but it arguably allowed him to pursue even greater things afterwards. Most notably: Drumming for Xygen, the nu-metal band him and his friends Rob Swire, Gareth McGrillen and Jay Burns founded in the early 2000s. You might have already picked up on a couple big names there (yes, that Jay Burns!), but back then, they were just four dudes rehearsing at Karl's dad’s factory unit and playing to a whopping 20 people in Perth pubs. However, as you might have guessed, even with hits like Survival Of The Fakest and Lycaeum, the band didn't last all too long, since Rob and Gareth left the group to try their hands at electronic music production. Hah, as if that would ever work out!

ShockTwo (2005 - 2010)

Well, what do you do when half your band quits to work on electronic music instead? Grab the other half and follow them into the fray! During their time together as bandmates, Gareth introduced Karl to the wonderful world of trackers, with Fast Tracker 2 being the first weapon of choice, and Rob shared his accumulated wealth of knowledge about sequencing and general electronic music production stuff with him, so it wasn't completely out of left field, to be fair. While both the knowledge and the hardware, an old IBM 486, were there, ready to go one might even say, Karl and Jay still hadn't quite managed to find a sick producer name. One day, during a brainstorming session with the Xygang around 2005, they brought up the name Shook Ones, as a reference to the Mobb Deep classic. Rob, not having heard them quite right, agreed that the name Shock One would be great for them, and the rest is history!

A history I intend to continue combing through, of course. With a sick, brand spanking new name now secured, the two of them started dropping all sorts of scientific tunes, the first two of which, Dropping Science and Silverscreen, were quickly signed to Friction's Shogun Audio. It gives me immense joy that, out of all the labels, ShockOne's debut came out on an imprint so phonetically similar to the name. Kismet aside, this first release opened the doors to more and more opportunities, with double single after double single dropping on Shogun, Incite, RAM Records offshoot Frequency Recordings, and, in 2007, even Futurebound's Viper Recordings. For that last one, Karl actually put the emphasis on single in double single and the one in ShockOne, as Jay had now also jaywalked away from the project by that point. More like Bye-per Recordings, am I right?! Anyway.

By this point, the local scene was already well aware of the talent, winning one Perth Music Dance Award after the other, and his list of successes only grew from there! An entry on the 2008 Headroom compilation EP, followed by Follow You, and the first of many infamous releases: The Sun, featuring the most perthunctious of them all, Phetsta. All throughout this, Karl was still not quite happy with the quality of the tunes he had been producing (he considered it "Purple monkey dishwasher", to directly quote him), but this self-doubt was absolutely squashed when he and his sister, Reija Thomas, probably better known as Reija Lee, came up with Polygon. Despite only being the second piece of dance music Reija had ever sung on, the siblings' first (official) collaboration got absolutely rinsed on triple j's airwaves, a proper full-circle moment for Karl, and was even called the "biggest drum and bass track around" by none other than Annie Mac! However, 2009 had even more in store for him than just the massive success of Polygon. First off, the self-titled EP it was part of also gave us the return of Phetsta on the break-fueled True Believer with young up-and-comer Metrik and Karl's first Dubstep exploration with Adachigahara's Theme, which stayed at number 1 on the Dubstep chart for over a month, and secondly, ShockOne's name also appeared a whopping four times on the now legendary Acts Of Mad Men compilation!

Shock Numero Uno Versus The World (2010 - 2016)

After such a highly successful 2009, ShockOne's 2010 was mostly shaped by remixes, both as a remixer for Netsky, BCee, Chicane and Cutline, and a remixee on his Re-Fix EP, with remixes from himself, Phetsta and Dirtyphonics, the last of which got featured Andy C's Nightlife 5 and reached numero uno on the BBC 1Xtra charts. You know what usually follows a load of remixes like that - album news! 2011 we got the confirmation that the debut wasn't long away anymore, with the first single Crucify Me, another venture with the Phetstmeister, dropping in the summer to drum up some hype. And drum it did! With himself on the nostalgic vocals and a Dubstep mix on the flipside, it reached #1 on Beatport's DnB chart, #1 on Drum&Bass Arena and #1 on both the DnB and Dubstep charts on Trackitdown, a historical first! Spurred on by this success, Karl followed that up with Dubstep weapon Relapse, with Tantrum Desire providing the DnB flipside this time around.

And then... Not a whole lot for a while. Well, musically at least. 2012 saw him admitting to his obsession with his girlfriend-at-the-time (but don't tell her), proclaiming his love for Hudson Mohawke's now infamous sex anthem Cbat (more like CockOne am I right), playing shows all over the European continent (the security guards in Russia had actual AK47s), and, oh yeah, small ting, he moved to London! In Australia, he later explained, you can get by relatively easily and just spend your free time in the sun avoiding snakes or something. In Hackney, on the other hand, Silky K, as they now called him, had to properly fight for his survival by becoming the very best version of himself and hustling harder than ever before.

He improved his game so much, in fact, that he realised that the early, yet to be released album material from 2011 wasn't up to his newly raised standards, so the debut LP got delayed a bunch again. Aside from remixes for Ayah Marar and Tommy Trash, Mister K had one more original musical ace up his sleeve to unveil that year though: Chaos Theory! With Machete Trailer guy Corey Burton on the documentary style vocals, the Dubstep-y epic soared to #1 on the iTunes Dance Chart, #2 on Beatport (behind Skrillex and Nero, to be fair) and #1 on Track It Down, and earned itself an Ace Of Clubs seal of approval from Crissy Criss.

After three whole years of work, like 50 scrapped songs, and more nervous breakdowns than you might expect, his debut album Universus was finally released in 2013! Released on Viper & One Love Recordings, the long player took listeners on a journey through DnB, Drumstep, Dubstep, 110BPM stuff, 130BPM 4x4 stuff and, according to various interviews, sea shanties, tibetan monk throat singing, monk step, some bro-wonk and, to finish it all off, some emo-twerk. This sort of variety, all wrapped up in an expansive sci-fi concept, with the likes of Metrik, The Notorioius P.H.E.T. and his sister joining in on the fun, showed that the LP had been well worth the wait and the scene ate it up! Not only did Zane Lowe on BBC Radio 1 and triple j show a lot of love, it also snagged the pole position on both the Australian iTunes chart and the Australian ARIA charts, next to Michael Bublé and Bruno Mars. Plus, the massively successful Australian Universus tour, particularly the Perth album launch show, which Karl gushed over in practically every interview!

The stress of the process left its marks though. Sure, he still had a couple Metrik collaborations on UKF and Hospital and remixes for TC and R3hab come out, and I think he moved back to Perth during this time (I can't verify that though), but that was basically it for the next couple of years.

Just a small ShockOne in the Dark Machine (2016 - 2019)

Until his triumphant return in 2016! Continuing on from his previous multi-genre explorations, he laid waste to the whole Dubstep scene, from solo slammers to collaborative bangers with the likes of Virtual Riot, HWLS, and, of course, Phetrick Star, from an original EP on Warner to remixes for Barely Alive on Disciple (that one was DnB, to be fair) and Dillon Francis and NGHTMRE on Mad Decent. Then, in 2017, the arguably even more triumphanterest of returns: The Thomas siblings collaborated again, on A Dark Machine! Fun fact about this anthem: Even though Reija had broken her arm the day before, she and her slinged-up broken extremity still managed to make it to the studio thanks to the wonders of very strong painkillers, and against all odds really, the takes they recorded that day ended up being so good, they became the ones you hear on the final version today. To celebrate the debut Monstercat single reaching the top 10 of the actual Australian singles charts (!), Karl went on the Dark Machine national headline tour with Reija, HWLS and Godlands7 shortly after.

Following that frankly huge ordeal, he's continued on with a steady stream of successes here and there, sometimes collaborating with Brookes Brothers and Cyantific on their respective Viper albums, sometimes remixing DJ Snake, and fellow Aussies What So Not and Ekko & Sidetrack, sometimes winning Best Electronic Producer and all sorts of other awards at the West Australian Music (WAM) Awards and the National Live Music Awards, and sometimes even becoming a father. Between all of that, however, he sneakily built up a catalogue of tunes with suspiciously similar looking artworks and before you knew it, he unleashed his second album, A Dark Machine, in 2019, via Monstercat-slash-Warner, onto the world.

Inspired by classic 80's film soundtracks from legendary producers like Giorgio Moroder and Vangelis and with a posse including Cecil, Cruz Patterson, The Bloody Beetroots and Ekko and Sidetrack bringing their own creative takes to the table, Karl once again took the listener on a journey into an expansive conceptual world. A "conversation between the subconscious and the self", an exploration of how past experiences shape our way of thinking and, consequently, how we act in everyday life, an acknowledgement that the subconscious is an integral part of us we have to come to terms with - and also a banging, multi-genre album that peaked at #26 on the ARIA album charts, beating out such suckers as that Elton John dude.

Karl Thomaschine Records (2020 - 2024)

Another successful album launch out of the way, plus the smashing tour right after, he finally decided to go back and pursue a decade-old dream of his: A ShockOne live show™️! Luckily performed before the end of the world as we knew it, this debut show at Origin Fields not only saw him dust off the old drums for the first time in 10 whole years, but also strum the guitar and even sing for the very first time in front of people, ever. With that many firsts out of the way on New Year's already, you'd think that's enough to last a whole year, but he also wanted to tackle something more community-oriented: A label! You see, over the years he had gotten to know a plethora of talented people all over not just Australia, but also New Zealand and even Japan, that simply... weren't a thing on the usual European labels. The likes of Lee Mvtthews, who were already huge in Kiwiland, or newer names like YUSSI all already had the chops to create some incredibly sick tunes, they just needed a platform. A platform like Dark Machine Records, founded in mid-2020 in collaboration with Central Station Records.

The plan wasn't "just" putting out sick music though, Karl's ambitions were, and still are, way higher. Under the DMR umbrella, he and his team would both organise the rather huge A Dark Machine Warehouse events all over Australia and even New Zealand and regularly throw unregularly huge raves in Perth, slowly but surely building up a proper bass music community all across Oceania. They did also champion a lot of super talented artists and their straight-up insane music on the way there though. You might think when you kick off a label with a tune as ginormous as Lee Mvtthews's Turning Back, you'd have trouble keeping that level of quality going. Not Dark Machine Records though! Just on our weekly DnB releases threads, I've already talked about simply spectacular DMR releases from Pirapus, sammythesinner and HAZEY, but other genres were also very well represented by the likes of Tek Genesis, Pulp Friction and TWERL, among so many others.

Relatively unbothered by the lockdowns, which apparently barely changed Karl's day-to-day studio life anyway, he continued to work on getting his own sick music out there. Collabs with Metrik and Koven, a charity single to raise funds for the Australian bushfires with fellow Perthians SLUMBERJACK, TWERL, Loston and HWLS, remixes for Delta Heavy, Alison Wonderland, Blanke, Odd Mob and Kanine, all rightfully earned him even more wins at the WAM awards, or wammies, as I like to call them, but that wasn't the only thing that was going on during this tumultous time. Single after single, some in collaboration with UKF, some even sharing similar-looking artworks, started to appear over the years - that son of a bench was building up to another album all this time! While not too much of a surprise considering all that, I still immediately jumped on the hype train when album number three, Organism Algorithm, was announced 4 weeks ago. I mean, did you see Karl's new sleek haircut in that video?!

Yep, that means we have finally caught up with the present times and we can finally talk about the actual album! I've got one more thing though: Fun facts! Here you go:

Karl's shoe size is 11 U.S. (that's 43-44 in EU sizes)
His least favourite Simpsons character: Milhouse
The Simpsons character he most identifies with: also Milhouse
He once fell out of the DJ booth, into the crowd, onto his face at a gig
His interests include entomology, ghost hunting, Big Foot appreciation, spelling, parallel parking, leisure walking, support groups and having a dislocatable thumb. All true, totally not sarcastic answers, directly from Karl!

Resources

Track Breakdown

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

1. Alone

We open with an absolute BANG, with the intro track to most ShockOne sets these past few years: Alone! As if floating through the vast nothingness of space, we only hear brief glimpses of synths gently swiping our futuristic vessel of choice every now and then, the vocals faintly echoing in the distance. Suddenly, a gargantuan machine announces itself with almost earthquakian basses, towering above us and promising us in best Nero fashion that we'll never be alone. Since that does sound quite enticing and I mean what could even go wrong with that, we keep approaching it, until, of course, all hell breaks loose. Basses thrashing about all around us, heavy-hitting Dancefloor drumwork, singular cowbell hits, just absolutely phat! Especially that buildup in the second half is simply goosebump-inducing, preparing us nicely for what's to come.

2. Open Your Mind

Keeping the banger train rolling, Karl channels his inner Kuato and asks us to consider Opening Our Mind. Soon, the hypnotising mantra is expanded upon by another vocal polyrhythmically interjecting that we should please go to the floor. Before your head can explode from too much expansion, the circle is broken and the reason for the second vocal's insistence is revealed: An enormously satisfying siren lead chugging along like a freight train on a truly grimey bassline. I'm honestly addicted. Even the meditative vocal sample in the breakdown can't get my subconsciousness to let go of this banger in my head. Dudududuuuuuuu, du!

3. Ready To Go (feat. Bright Sparks)

Speaking of obsession, next up we've got the personification of an addictive substance taunting us into consumption, on Ready To Go. The intro might make you think we're getting some more of that sweet, sweet monk step we've heard so much about earlier, but instead Karl treats us to a true earworm of a Dancefloor tune. It's so catchy and drills so far into your brain that it's almost as if the lyrics are actually coming from the track itself, mocking you as press play for the 24th time in a row, because you just can't quit it. It's not just the lyrics themselves though, the uniquely captivating performance from English duo Bright Sparks is just as much a reason for my endless spiral of replays.

4. Organism Algorithm

Next up, we move a little more sluggishly than before, on Organism Algorithm. What the title track lacks in speed, however, it makes more than up for in menacing power. While the break-heavy rhythms and the vocal chopping on its own put your mind in a state of nostalgic euphoria with its buckets of oldschool rave flair, the supercharged basses yank you right out of your bubble back into the bleak future. A contrast that can especially be felt in the two buildups. In the first half, things might start off a little unnerving and distorted, but we lose ourselves in the exhilarating melodies. In the second half, we are treated to one miserable cynical thought after the other, only stopping when the synths are turned all the way up, even more distorted than before.

5. Higher Rush (feat. Freaks & Geeks)

Some soothing guitar strumming leads us to the first entry of a streak of straight-up anthemic vocal-driven bangers: Higher Rush! With Doctor P's and Phil-from-Roksonix's collaborative DnB project Freaks & Geeks on the production with Karl and London-based vocalist JANEVA on the vocal performance that's as incredible as it is uncredited, we explore the off-the-chains pleasure, that sweet, sweet rush that nothing else can give us, and the powerful yearning for more once you are deep in it, on exactly the kind of instantly catchy, sing-along whomp anthem type beat you'd expect from such a combination of artists. Tune.

6. Thinkin About (feat. Lee Mvtthews)

Since it worked so wonderfully the first time, Karl decided to get JANEVA back on the uncredited vocal duty one more time, on Thinkin About. Apparently originally recorded for a different tune, Karl and his collaborators, none other than Kiwi legends Lee Mvtthews, decided to rework the original emotional struggle with unrequited love into the perfect "blend of rave and radio", to the point that the process felt more like a remix than an original. As such, the lovely vocals are of course still the main star in this one, but thanks to the wild break-heavy, distorted whomp laden, choppy sounds of the drop the whole thing becomes a proper summer festival anthem.

7. Heart On Fire (feat. Pauline Herr)

After the wild whirlwind world of unrequited love, we now continue on with requited love, on Heart On Fire. Los Angeles based production, DJing and singing triple threat Pauline Herr pulls of such a delightfully heartwarming vocal performance, filled to the brim with pure, unbridled love for the subject at hand, that your heart really might just catch on fire from too much loveliness. While having your heart be on fire does sound like something a doctor should look at, I choose to interpret it in the more metaphorical, magical kind. My personal highlight has got to be the cute little vocalisations towards the end of the chorus and the vocoder action in the breakdown. Elevating this even further, Karl wraps this wonderfulness in a blanket of absolutely gorgeous synths exploding into all sorts of colours in the night sky. A bit of a mixed metaphor maybe. You know what isn't mixed though? My opinion about this lovely piece of music!

8. Hey Boy Hey Girl

Yep, you've read that right! We've reached the rave-y part of the album, and Karl unkalmly kicks it off with a rebuild of The Chemical Brothers seminal banger Hey Boy Hey Girl! Sometimes ID'd as an actual ShockOne Remix on 1001tracklists, you might have already heard the 4x4 slammer in one of Karl's recent sets. Aside from everything being obviously sped up to DnB tempo, slight rhythmic changes in the relentlessly pounding, acid-laden four-to-the-floor sections and the titular vocal sample from Rock Master Scott & The Dynamic Three's The Roof Is On Fire having been revoiced, with the here we go being replaced by let's go, a lot of the details of the original have actually been quite faithfully reconstructed. But with a little ShockOne magic spread on top of it, to give it that extra oomph, you know?

9. Follow Me

Now for the one you all probably already know: Follow Me! Not only did the 2020 single win Karl another trophy at the Australian Independent Record Awards, it also quickly became his biggest-ever tune, with it having almost crossed the 8.5 million mark on Spotify alone. I'll admit that I also had immediately fallen in love with it back then, and to be honest, the love never really went away. Hearing this "message from the all-seeing, all-knowing god of algorithms" being blasted at the socially distanced 2020 Rampage event in Cologne was almost a religious experience and hearing it played out at Let It Roll last year was no different. There's nothing more fun than singing along to the computerized voice spouting off the iconic lyrics, before being blasted to bits by the absolute mad call-and-response between the menacing, bassface-causing bass and that ratatatat rhythm. And it just mixes with everything! Legendary tune really.

10. Say Woah

From one computerized woah-inducing slapper to the other, we now follow things up with Say Woah! On its face the lyrics are straight-forward Dancefloor stuff, but the constant repetition, the two different, menacing computer-generated voices and probably also the hard-hitting bass make you feel as if we're witnessing AI programs discuss how to distract people, so they can safely execute their plans to overtake humanity. Just let them hear the bass and soon enough they'll get down on the floor! Extinction worries aside, the structurally minimal yet weightily (surely that's a word) maximal 4x4 beat underneath this heated debate between our future overlords really does make you say woah. Maybe there's no deeper meaning and Karl just wanted an excuse to get Brenton Cruff aka The Hakk Guy for a music video and this kind of thick, bassy 4x4 beat was the way to go, who knows! Either way, a relentless tune really.

11. Hardwired (feat. Reija Lee)

Before we close this book again, we need to get one more thing out of the way: An anthem with Reija Lee! It might almost feel obligatory at this point, but to be honest, as long as they are this amazing they can do a whole album of tunes together and I wouldn't get sick of it. On their newest collaboration, Hardwired, which apparently also had some touch-ups from Metrik if the credits are to be trusted, the siblings once again combined a uniquely futuristic yet emotionally resonant, simply stunning vocal performance about one's inability to defend against that antagonistic inner voice, with the powers of synths that are as strikingly gorgeous as they have ever been and goosebump-inducing accents that are simply delightfully placed, to create one hell of a nostalgic experience, with that sweet sweet modern touch. Something from the Thomasses, for the (Tho)masses.

12. It's All Over

Don't worry, It's All Over now. Even though this Dubstep weapon of (Tho)mass destruction released a whopping 4 years ago on Monstercat, its many switchups, each more ridiculous than the one that came before, and the general sense of flow you get from all these transitions help it feel as fresh as new. You honestly cannot tell where this apocalyptic experience is taking you next, I mean, after a rather hype delayed drop he even does a bit of Double-Time Psytrance in the second half! As long as it's got ShockOne on the soundtrack, even the end of the world is still a great time. Maybe not for the whole family though.

Conclusion

ShockOne did it again! For those that want some substantial storytelling in their albums, Organism Algorithm can be a cinematic deep dive into the hedonistic side of cyberpunk in the face of certain doom. Be it due to all-powerful artificial intelligence or climate disaster, some sort of disaster is definitely going on in the dark machine extended universe, and we're all horrible at coping with it, latching onto addictive tendencies, championing ignorance and just trying to live our best life despite it all. What other choice do we really have? It's what our organism algorithm dictates!

Well, and for those who just want some sick tunes, you're definitely getting your fill too! To the Shock of no One. Even though it is technically Karl's least diverse album, genre-wise that is, the sheer variety of sounds present throughout all these DnBangers more than makes up for it. With picturesque bangers like Alone, dreamy sing-along anthems like Heart On Fire or Hardwired, rave-y weapons like Open Your Mind, or 4x4 carnage like Hey Boy Hey Girl or Say Woah, basically every corner of the Dancefloor spectrum is covered, and then some. ShockOne has always stood for world class storytelling and top-notch production that just hits you in your very core, but this album is on a whole 'nother level in that regard in my opinion. I am a little biased as a full-on DnB guy though, I will admit that.

TL;DR: Bleak yet beautiful, pessimistic yet cheeky, rave-y yet heartfelt - a true landmark in the world of Dancefloor, and honestly Drum and Bass as a whole. Perthect.