Logistics - Reality Checkpoint

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  • Logistics’ Now More Than Ever from 2006 was less an artist album and more a compilation of past singles and B-sides – 25 tracks loosely divided between a soulful disc and a more techy one. With his latest LP Reality Checkpoint, Logistics has said that he was aiming for a more cohesive artist album feel, making “a conscious effort not to aim it at the dancefloor so much.” This might come as a disappointment to fans of his first album, which contained surefire dnb dancefloor destroyers such as ‘Falling For You’ and ‘Girl From Mars’. But even if you’re willing to sit down for some ‘home-listening drum n bass’, Reality Checkpoint is still a letdown. Logistics’ gamble with solidifying his sound means sacrificing track-to-track variety, and it sounds hopelessly samey after just a few cuts. Tracks like ‘Lullaby’ and ‘Slow Motion,’ on which crashing cymbals and eerie, filtered voices run circles around slow-moving glaciers of bass, are commendable standouts. Many others, though, like the title track and ‘Continuum’, are just poorer variations on the same theme. For a dash of color, why didn’t Logistics invite some guest vocalists along? Last year’s dnb artist albums from High Contrast and Nu:Tone featured stellar collaborations with Ian Shaw and Natalie Williams, respectively, among others. Now More Than Ever contained some great work from Terri Pace and Alice Smith, along with the inspired use of the vocals from Ananda Project’s decade-old house track ‘Cascades of Colour.’ Hell, even Logistics himself sang for one track, ‘Machine.’ Here, however, the sparse vocals are relegated to the distant background, and when they’re at their most pronounced, such as alongside piano and strings on ‘Trying Times’, it sounds a little like Moby making a dnb tune. Reality Checkpoint is at its best when Logistics gets a little aggressive. ‘Daybreak Sequence’ makes perfect sense as the first track – it’s a sonic playground of rolling drums and constantly mutating Gameboy bleeps and bloops that demands your attention every step of the way. ‘No Words’, with its massive drop and soaring synths, sounds like a dnb remix of an old trance tune, yet its tough breakbeat keeps it from ever getting cheesy. It’s the best and most accomplished track on the album. But again, with the album’s best tracks, there’s usually a mildly retarded offspring made from the leftover parts lurking a few tracks further down the line. The bleepy/bloopy run-off from ‘Daylight Sequence’ is messily arranged into ‘Cocoon’, for instance, which only serves to sour your impression of the former. Tracks like these should’ve been skimmed off the top and dumped as B-sides somewhere along the way if this was ever going to be a respectable full-length. Given a little more time in the lab, and with some much-needed guest vocal spots, Reality Checkpoint could’ve filled its hollow core, shed its rush-job skin and become the artist album it should’ve been.
  • Tracklist
      01 Daybreak Sequence 02 Lullaby 03 Reality Checkpoint 04 Cocoon 05 96 06 Trying Times 07 Cold World 08 Waiting Line 09 No Words 10 Slow Motion 11 Dreamer Of Dreams 12 Continuum 13 Glitch 14 Back Where We Started
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