Knife Party – Bonfire
Next week we’ll examine the “step” part…
[Video][Website]
[5.50]
Anthony Easton: It’s chaotic, blistering, and too aggressive to be fun, with its Kalashnikov percussion and guttural vocals that speed up and splinter too effectively to give the listener a rest. It’s not even beautiful. But the way Knife Party uses found sounds, riddim toasting, disco lazers, and a narrative that edges (and I mean that in the fetish sense) but never allows release, is a total back room beating — red light and all.
[10]
Iain Mew: Puts the dub into dubstep! Well, until they get carried away with their noises, forget that and start repeating themselves, but there’s a fairly exciting 2:30 long single in there somewhere.
[5]
Will Adams: Now that Pendulum is no more, the only way I can enjoy Rob Swire is either hoping for more Rihanna collaborations or hoping that he moves away from the bland drumstep he’s been churning out with Knife Party. The calmer parts with those stabs of brass and reggae vocals are nice, offering some musical history to the unaware (“So that’s where the ‘dub’ in ‘dubstep’ comes from!”). But a small pit forms in my stomach when I think about this thing’s target audience, and how said parts will likely be dismissed as little more than the “boring” calm before the WOB.
[5]
Alfred Soto: Points for sounding like a war in the disco. More points for easing into dub mode without effort.
[5]
Patrick St. Michel: Dear fraternities I made fun of between the years of 2005-2009: For all the popped collar and keg-stand jokes my friends and I made at your expense (Oh youth! Oh arrogance that seemed cool at the time!), every frat party I ended up at played a solid mix of top-40 rap and pop (for the ladies, natch) that wasn’t a bad soundtrack to a Friday night. Thank you for that, because upon hearing the knuckleheaded-brostep-meets-Bob-Marley-poster sounds of “Bonfire,” I’m glad not to be entering college this fall where this will probably be blasting from fraternity row all weekend long.
[2]
Jonathan Bogart: Modern post-Skrillex dubstep that has even a vague connection to dub? Astonishing.
[7]
Kat Stevens: I am glad they know how to keep warm on Dubstep Island.
[6]
Brad Shoup: I like the drops. God help me, I really, really like the drops. Next year may find me seeding a Bubblegum Motherfucker torrent for insta-nostalgics. Maybe I’ll just pare each track to the build and the drop. And maybe I’ll start with this one.
[4]