EP REVIEW: Loadstar – Passenger/Bomber

Having left a simmering buzz in the ear of the public with their previous round of electronic punches Second Skin/Terror Drone, Drum and Bass duo Loadstar return for another blow, armed and ready to attack, their weapon of choice being latest EP Passenger/Bomber.

Loadstar sees the combination of two of the most sought after Drum and Bass DJ’s, Gavin Harris, and Nick Hill, otherwise known in the Drum and Bass world as Xample, and Lomax. The pair met after Harris booked Hill’s former music project Holdtight while promoting a local D&B night in Liverpool, where he was then studying sociology. The duo crossed paths again in Bristol, and behold; a musical marriage of individual and groundbreaking sounds was created. Xample and Lomax fuse their creative and dynamic skills to develop music that will have you submitting to the stomach curdling gargles of the robotic bassline drops, stooping so low that it resonates beneath your feet, ripples through your body, and expires deep inside your chest, as the rhythm’s skip tempos with a bucket full of confidence.

Their name was devised as the pair searched through samples of their old rave tapes, and computer game cassettes in a bid to find inspiration for the name of their monumental collaboration, eventually, they came across an old Emu sampler of theirs, of which displayed a spinning star as it slowly loaded the music samples, thus the incarnation of Loadstar, and the name of a monstrously compelling project.

Passenger opens the EP, teasing you in to the darkness with a gentle intro of pianos, and a euphoric tone, gaining the listeners trust before being thrown mercilessly into a deep drop full of quick twists and turns, the only source of light being the slight vocals seeping through small gaps, until the piano reappears, tempting you again into yet another drop, crawling with half time drumstep beats, and contorting with the screams of the synthesizer.

Bomber is full to the brim with attitude, beginning with a blast of refreshing synth breaths, an electronic voice signals blast off into a tunnel of contorting bassline scratches, bubbling and flexing in your eardrums. No doubt a more claustrophobic floor filler, a dirty taste of aggression for all those drum and bass addicts, the sprinkled sirens echo the rush of adrenaline listeners experience once they become slaves to the dominating bassline in this track.

To conclude the EP, Loadstar offers a Culprate remix of Passenger, while he maintains the hypnotic piano’s, and the enticing vocals, Culprate offers a more evil side to the already dark drop, hissing at the listener, with suffocating kicks that leave you gasping for air, and begging for the softer variations of the piano, but also wanting more.

This EP is set to be ignited on July 8^th, we dare you to risk the numbing static, lingering around your eardrums after listening to one hell of an EP.