Time sure does fly and I can hardly believe it has apparently been a decade since we last covered a release by electro mayhem mutants Junkie Kut. That was EP Rebirth and I ended that review saying a new album was on the way. ‘Enter The Dreamtime’ seems to have finally arrived four years later but must have passed me by but never mind, the machine lives on and here we have fourth album Ekstasis to contend with. Although formed in the UK it is the live scene in Europe that has seen this act flourishing with their politically themed aggrotech and no doubt they have mangled plenty of heads and necks performing all over the place including a couple of outings at the acclaimed Berlin street event Fuckparade. As far as the line-up is concerned there were a few of them last encounter but I am assuming they may now just be a one-man project helmed by founder Ryan Swainson.
We get a rabble rousing twelve tracks here. The first and closing pieces’ work as a wraparound segment with plenty of cyber, futuristic ambience and relate a tale told by a synthesized feminine voice tinging things with a dystopian vibe. ‘UNTRIBE’ brings the noise with a cheeky sonic siren call that will no doubt have any fans of The Prodigy sitting up and getting ready to rave. Beats pound in and vocals urge us to stand up to them, which is absolutely impossible to resist. The injection of adrenaline is driven by many components over the duration of the album taking in facets of industrial, metal, trance, speedcore and gabba to name a few. You can tell that this will appeal to those just wanting to dance like crazy and the sort of crowds that will fill arenas by that aforementioned tribe as well as those wanting some more extreme elements to spur them into the outer limits of the genres on display. The vocals, as I have no doubt said in the past, do remind a fair bit of ohGr and the thrust of Skinny Puppy is only a heartbeat away on numbers like ‘The Fight Inside [Process Your History].’ The chorus on this one is catchy and could even be said to have commercial qualities if it were not for the gabba bruising beats. These move into frantic breakcore on ‘Ⓐ Is For Ⓐlchemy’ and you should be prepared for some of the sounds that are flung out messing with your head as they go absolutely BPM mad and descend into digital white noise.
Never standing still for a second, ‘Snakes Ov DNA’ has a bit of dark hip-hop about it along with slow rapped out vocals and digital beeps whereas ‘FVCK THE TEMPO’ moves and grooves from futuristic synthwave to banging trance, doing exactly as suggested. If I had to be critical and it’s entirely down to personal taste there are a few instances of what sound like auto-tuned vocals on songs like ‘Thee Dance Of Reality’ which I could do without but there are plenty of other things to make them nothing more than a fleeting annoyance. The juddering ballast and pumping beats of ‘EARTHlings’ complete with an invading sound which appears to have escaped from a retro arcade machine keeps everything twitching and penultimate tune ‘In Crisis With Ourselves [Br0ken 1n Binary]’ is a delirious body popping melange of thudding beats, acid rave and EBM. Pretty much every possible box is ticked here and ‘Ekstasis’ is a really enjoyable shape-shifter of an album well worth checking out. Question your reality at the following links.
(8/10 Pete Woods)
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