Davros vs Unibomber - The Final Amiga 500 Battle

As a fanatic of the classic forms of Industrial Hardcore, Breakcore and Speedcore, it’s releases like this that stir an unusual mix of disparate emotions in me and no doubt those of my ilk. On the one hand I’m sad that records in the old style are so rarely made these days, or at least made well, and that collecting the originals themselves can be such an expensive and difficult process. On the other hand I’m ecstatic because with ‘The Final Amiga 500 Battle’, Davros and Unibomber have come together to create an absolutely spot-on double serving that meets and exceeds all the expectations I had for it.

If you’ve heard these two American producers before you know their styles are absolute quality and this continues here with two plates of distinctive and individually impressive workouts on the Hardcore War Pig aka the Commodore Amiga 500.

Davros delivers 5 punishing tracks and one absolutely brilliant intro of noisy, blistering Amiga fury. Each tune is great in its own right but ‘The User’ stands apart from the bunch, somewhat reminiscent of Davros’ Abelcain material or even that of Epsilon; a dark, pulsating, progressive, dirty yet melodic Breakcore monster of a tune, bound to incite some nightmares into the unsuspecting victims of the right dancefloor.

To my initial surprise, it was the Unibomber disc that really turned on all cylinders for me. If the Davros plate could be described as Speedcore and Breakcore then Unibomber’s is definitely Industrial Hardcore of the most premium quality. Brilliant samples in tracks like ‘Amiga 500 Home Computer’ and ‘Schizophrenia’ are complimented by ample breakbeat useage, driving kicks, awesome breakdowns and tough-as-nails melodic stabs that are sure to get even the most toffee-nosed old skool snob to grab a beer and nod their head approvingly if not get them on the floor.

If the title of the release didn’t suggest such finality I would enthusiastically hope for another ‘Amiga Battle'. Perchance to dream!