Necton - Boilin' I-Balls

After enjoying the first 3 Acid Casualties releases I bought this one without having heard it. I've never come to enjoy it really, since I usually find Nectons tracks too stale. They try to be funky but fail, in my opinion. So if you're a big Necton fan, ignore the rest of this review.

The A-side sports a _very_ heavy and muffled kick drum in the intro that changes to a more ordinary one once things get going. A bassy 303 loop is combined with some experimental hihat percussion and occational stabs of a fairly goa-esque synth line. This is in fact a lot more oldschool sounding than some of the Spiral Trax releases at the time, so why this was put out on the supposedly "progressive" label of the two is a bit mysterious. A break with a didgeridoo-like sound and some big reverbed toms gets my hope up a little but it never takes off properly. Instead, it sounds like a somewhat failed attempt at making a generic goa track. If you're going to use a 303 in the year 2000 I'd expect something more innovative. It never gets into the screaming frequencies though, which is a bit of a relief. A bunch of corny key changes spoil the little fun that is to be had.

"This Is Weird" has a surprisingly nice and dark intro, but as with so many other tracks in this genre they don't keep the mood of the intro for long. An off-beat bass and some highly predictable percussion later I find myself bored, and the track is just two minutes old. Some of the intro sounds make a brief reappearance in the break halfway through but go away again as soon as the kick returns. You know how some tracks have this irresistible groove even if its just the kick and an off-beat bass? This is the opposite of that. Very un-funky and mindnumbing.

"Toxic Rock" has this 92-ish "rave" synthesizer sound in the intro, which makes me very sceptical, and the 303 sounds that come later completely spoils it. This is like a dull form of UK acid but with even _less_ funk. Too many breaks and no elements that are hypnotic, psychedelic or even dancable. When that rave sound reappears towards the end it's downright unpleasant.

Conclusion: Necton fans might enjoy, but there is way better music out there. The A-side is the least bad track. Only interesting if you want to have everything from this label or plan to blackmail DJ Anti for releasing this stuff. (naaah, it ain't THAT bad...)