December 2007 • Fabric
As dismissive of dubstep as a lot of people are (especially the more annoying "brostep" stuff), I've been trying to keep an open mind with the genre. There's bound to be some decent brostep somewhere, right? I've already heard a Rusko album which wasn't bad, and Fabric is known for putting out some pretty high-quality mixes regardless of style; this particular one isn't too bad itself, though it sometimes has its head up its ass.
The beginning and end of the mix, in particular, is where most of the juicy good bits are. It's some pretty abnormal stuff for dubstep with house-like beats and some really neat sampling, such as the East Asian style in "Cockney Violin" or the reggae style of "Round the Way Girls". The mix closes out in a similar fashion with some almost ambient tracks (at least, compared to the ones before them) that are less experimental but still pretty pleasant.
The problem, of course, lies in the middle of the mix, and unfortunately the majority. There are quite a few obnoxious tracks that don't do anything for me at all, like "Terminator" or "V" or "The Drop" (one of the most annoying beats I've ever heard in my life), that are basically a simple drum beat and very grating "wub-wub" distorted bass. Caspa's material, especially, is dull; Rusko and the guest producers generally mix it up a little more but everyone gets their fair share of wubbing.
I guess since this mix is what basically started the whole brostep thing, it's understandable that is sounds very simple and primitive, but that doesn't really excuse it for being somewhat dull and sometimes hard to listen to. It would have been nice to hear them stick to the more light and sample-based stuff; I can only take the wubs for so long before my head starts to hurt. Technically, it's not bad, though, and if you can stomach some dirty bass then this is worth a listen. Otherwise, stick to tracks 1–5 and 26–29 only.
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