Since 2005, Brooklyn-based drum and bass producer Sean Shah aka Silent Killer has been releasing some of the US dnb scene’s most ferocious productions through labels such as Outbreak and Obliterati, and this debut album on NYC label Ohm Resistance ‘Everyone Bleeds’ collects together some of his preceding highlights alongside several new tracks and two remixes from label boss Submerged and Breaker. As you’d expect, the nine tracks gathered here veer firmly towards the more face-tearing end of the dnb spectrum, with the overall aesthetic here leaning towards classic hardstep junglist styles than more contemporary breakcore influences. If the lush ‘Saviour’ represents the one almost ‘uplifting’ moment here with its ascending, almost symphonic synth progressions and furious clattering breakbeats, it’s met head-on by the pure nihilistic doomcore vibe of ‘Destroyer’ as it neatly slots sampled phrases like “death” and “destroy” amidst a vicious backdrop of accelerated trashcan Amen breaks that neatly breaks down into an eerie hiphop-oriented midsection before once again scything away into the distance. Much in this same vein, Submerged’s reworking of ‘Corpse’ kicks things off in menacing hiphop territory before massed, delayed out shouts see things locking straight down into the sort of blistering darkstep favoured by Andy C and Concord Dawn – if it perhaps sees the level of gloom getting a little too suffocating here, the vibe is nicely rescued by the comparatively more uplifting but no less head-drilling ‘Rockers’, which sees sampled ragga vocals and vaguely trancey synth arpeggios being pushed through all sorts of digital processing and timestretching. While I have to confess that some of this album bordered on being a little too ‘one dimensional’ for me personally, ‘Everyone Bleeds’ is likely to find a warm reception amidst the more hardheaded junglists out there.
Chris Downton
