Logistics – Crash Bang Wallop!
Logistics has been a rather bland drum and bass producer for the last 12 months or so and unfortunately his latest outing Crash Bang Wallop! is no exception. To give the reader a bit of background, I’ve been a big Logistics fan for a few years now. Older works of his such as Thunderchild and his remix of London Elektricity’s The Great Drum and Bass Swindle are all time favourites of mine. His first album, Now More than Ever is a masterpiece (City Life… OMG!). The sad truth is that the last year has seen a rather bland mix of tracks coming from him and Hospital Records in general.
It’s not that the production on Crash Bang Wallop! is bad, but the selection on offer just seems kind of … messy. Logistics meanders from jungle to house to techstep and never really manages to hit the nail on the head. Every track seems to just fall short of what it’s attempting to achieve. The downbeat jungle rhythms of the aptly named Jungle Music come across as repetitious and bland. In fact, repetitious and bland could be used to describe a majority of the album. Other tracks like Time Has Come and Murderation suffer from exactly the same problem.
The good thing is that the album does not go without its gems. Eastern Promise (not to be confused with Chase & Status’ abysmal overplayed Eastern Jam) is a lively energetic blend of jump up beats and electro synths that gets my heart pumping. At the other end of the spectrum, Repetition (ironic given the problems with the rest of the album) is an easy rolling sleeper, with just enough quirky shifts in the bassline to keep it interesting.
The highlights of the album basically showcase what Logistics is good at – dancefloor happy liquid funk (to paraphrase Hospital’s description). Those high points are in stark contrast to the rest of the album, which really attempts too much and achieves too little.
