Review of Bassnectar's Divergent Spectrum

[meshblorg]

http://lessthan3.com/#!/2011/08/convergent-bass

[meshblorg]

Bassnectar at Electric Daisy Carnival in Las Vegas this year:

[Sexual_Chocolate]

do you work for lessthan3 or something?

[meshblorg]

This is me:
www.letsmix.com/mix/53581/dj_meshblorg_my_wubbly_life

[meshblorg]

[Raggles]

Tbh I am not a fan of his new album. Just a bunch of remixes of his old shit. I was expecting something more from ol Lorin.

[Montgomery Burns]

Don't like this album.

[meshblorg]

Do elaborate

[Lawman]

Dude needs a fucking haircut. Honestly, I'm not even gonna preview this album just because his hair is disgusting.

[Raggles]

Dude needs a fucking haircut. Honestly, I'm not even gonna preview this album just because his hair is disgusting.

And I will never listen to your music until you have more posts than me on DSF.
See how little sense that makes?
His hair is irrelevant to his music, don't be a bitch.

[Lawman]

Dude needs a fucking haircut. Honestly, I'm not even gonna preview this album just because his hair is disgusting.

And I will never listen to your music until you have more posts than me on DSF.
See how little sense that makes?
His hair is irrelevant to his music, don't be a bitch.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

[Raggles]

Dude needs a fucking haircut. Honestly, I'm not even gonna preview this album just because his hair is disgusting.

And I will never listen to your music until you have more posts than me on DSF.
See how little sense that makes?
His hair is irrelevant to his music, don't be a bitch.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Yeah, I wouldn't know what to respond with either.

[Lawman]

Dude needs a fucking haircut. Honestly, I'm not even gonna preview this album just because his hair is disgusting.

And I will never listen to your music until you have more posts than me on DSF.
See how little sense that makes?
His hair is irrelevant to his music, don't be a bitch.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Yeah, I wouldn't know what to respond with either.

Sorry, I was judging Bassnectar based on his hair, which is a bit silly. I'll listen to his album and judge him based on his musical talent.

[underslung]

Dude needs a fucking haircut. Honestly, I'm not even gonna preview this album just because his hair is disgusting.

And I will never listen to your music until you have more posts than me on DSF.
See how little sense that makes?
His hair is irrelevant to his music, don't be a bitch.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Yeah, I wouldn't know what to respond with either.

Sorry, I was judging Bassnectar based on his hair, which is a bit silly. I'll listen to his album and judge him based on his musical talent.

*Spoiler Alert*

It's horrible, both his hair and musical talent

[GothamHero]

He already cut his hair LOL

[meshblorg]

What's with the youtube videos in people's sigs? lame

[JBoy]

What's with the youtube videos in people's sigs? lame

Not as lame a bassnectar's popstep 'music'.

[illandnatti]

A couple of good tracks but not a great album. He has come down from his lofty perch since he made Timestretch and imho hasn't been able to really get back there since.

I think a lot of what I'm feeling is just a general sort of desensitivity to the really heavy drops in general. Back in the day, when Bassnectar made those tracks, it was new and fresh. Today it doesn't live up to expectations which revolve around not only doing something that is new and fresh but making something that is revolutionary.

It's hard to expect a revolutionary album every time, but I feel Lorin could deliver given enough time. I'd rather see 1 unbelievable release every couple of years, then a "meh" to decent release every year on the dot.

That's just my 2 cents though.

[Raggles]

A couple of good tracks but not a great album. He has come down from his lofty perch since he made Timestretch and imho hasn't been able to really get back there since.

I think a lot of what I'm feeling is just a general sort of desensitivity to the really heavy drops in general. Back in the day, when Bassnectar made those tracks, it was new and fresh. Today it doesn't live up to expectations which revolve around not only doing something that is new and fresh but making something that is revolutionary.

It's hard to expect a revolutionary album every time, but I feel Lorin could deliver given enough time. I'd rather see 1 unbelievable release every couple of years, then a "meh" to decent release every year on the dot.

That's just my 2 cents though.

This.

I have lots of respect for the man but his last 2 albums just aren't cutting it. He needs to start back from timestretch.

[Redpill]

My review:
I don't really see much reviewing going on this post. I'll take my knock at it:

The new album is pretty sick. Overall I'd give it a 8/10. As a comparison to some of his other releases I'd give Mesmerizing the Ultra a 9/10, Underground Communication a 10/10, Cozza Frenzy a 10/10, the Timestretch EP a 7/10, and the Wildstyle EP a 6/10. Obviously, my taste is pretty biased as he is my favorite EDM artist, but here's how I break it down.

I read on Bassnectar's website that he was looking to find an even balance of "the angelic and craziness"... or something like that. I think he efficiently accomplished his goal. There is an even mix of club bangers (Red Step, The Matrix) and MTU-era atmospheric tracks (After Thought, Lights remix)...and then there are a few that combine the two into something new (Boomerang, Above & Beyond). After the release of the Timestretch EP, Bassnectar got a lot of flak from older fans (myself included) for straying away from his melodic roots. The Parade Into Centuries 2011 version works as a direct nod to the older fans, and merges the older MTU sound with the new dubstep sound. This one track singlehandedly shows what Bassnectar is really all about...and that is growth and evolution. Many other tracks are nods to the past as well; Paging Stereophonic takes on his older Hip Hop/Breakbeat style beat structure, with a new beatboxing sample (reference to the song Blow from MTU) and vocal samples from Blue State Riddim (from MTU). He mixes that with wobbles for a Teleport Massive-like sound. Yet, like most Bassnectar albums, he is still crossing uncharted territory...specifically with Boomerang, Above & Beyond, the Immigranaida remix and the Plugged In remix. Boomerang is according to him, "the death metal version of Timestretch." It has a grinding-heavy guitar drop, which he blended into something dreamy with a few well-constructed synths. Above & Beyond strays far from your standard dubstep track in terms of structure and flows more like a symphony...not just a symphony that has been remixed into dubstep. While I do hate the Massive patch he used for the intro of it (to me, it just sounds sloppy) the drop after it gets all symphonic makes up for it in so many ways. With his remix of Plugged In by Rollz, he's taken a D&B track and put the beats at halftime, which gives it a beat structure similar to his other drumstep tracks (Here We Go, Widstyle, Voodoo). The Plugged in remix, however, can't really be considered drumstep...there is no wobble, for the most part no dubstep influence all, but it seems far to slow to be D&B. It is primarily synth-driven, and according to Bassnectar; "Plugged In has a nice celebratory vibe to it… it is anthemic, almost triumphant." I agree with him...this track, for me, is tied with Boomerang as my favorite. The remix of Gogol Bordello's Immigraniada is by far the most daring of anything from the album. Bassnectar has substituted the intro and build in with unaltered (or subtly altered) cuts from the original song...which, by the way, falls under the genre of what they call "gypsy-punk" and is sung (I think) in a combination of English and Romanian (pardon my ignorance, I'm American). He built this remix with a club-friendly structure, as if he is daring other producers/DJs to spin something so alien at their shows...and I hope I hear it a billion times, because the drop is out of control and has a way of taking you by surprise. On that note, I should throw a mention at the other club-bangers. Probable Cause and Red Step are two of my favorites. Probable Cause may seem a bit odd to most people, personally I fucking love it. The intro has some sick delay on the beat. The build was made with a synth that resembles the whiny melody from Borgore's Foes, to me it sounds like the melody a snake charmer plays when performing. It drops into some pitch-bent insanity that progresses into the beat from his Cozza Frenzy track. Red Step marks Bassnectar's first interest in anything related to electro-house, though it is a dubstep track. I'm no electro-house fan, but Red Step is off the chain. It uses your pretty standard electro-house sound as a build and drops into crazyness

I gave this album a 8/10 because in my eyes it is great, but not flawless. Some aspects do seem lazy. I wouldn't go so far as saying that its just a bunch of remixes of his older stuff, and I feel that using samples from his older material shouldn't be looked down upon because he is still using them creatively, but I do feel he could have afforded to pull Zumby of Zion I or Persia back into the studio to record some vocals for Paging Stereophonic or Vodoo. Tracks like those are what gave Underground Communication an Cozza Frenzy their own unique feel. Another one of my gripes is that this album does not "flow" together the way albums should, and the way his older albums did. Some tracks have similar elements, but if I took any two random songs and put them on a mixed CD, chances are you wouldn't be able to tell they came from the same album (unless, of course, you got Plugged In with Boomerang, or Voodoo with The Matrix). Almost anything from MTU, UC, or CF you can literally pick out the evolving styles in every track on each album (take Leprechauns Arise with Enter the Chamber, Verbing The Noun with Ridiculous Wobble, Boombox with Teleport Massive). The same can be said for the albums of other EDM artists (TCM's Vegas, Evol Intent's Era of Diversion, Noisia's Split The Atom, Calyx's No Turning Back, ect.)....then again it is called "Divergent Spectrum"... maybe I should just get over my own snobbery.