- ‘Savage Skulls’ is one of those tracks where all the intentions are good but it just doesn’t quite come together. There are nice electro funk meets Italo touches in the main rhythm with a dash of psychedelia in the melodic elements. But there are also jarring elements like the acidic stabs that don’t quite mesh with the rest of the track, and a general lack of anything particularly catchy. Padded Cell have had some great releases in the past but this time around there’s just not enough body logic to make this record something truly danceable. Some DJs may like it because it is such a faithful tribute to Italo that it will slide nicely in between ‘End Title (Blade Runner)’ and ‘Peut Être Pas’ or suchlike, but amidst so many other records that sound similar, it’s hard to recommend this one in particular.
The B side, however, is a different matter. DC label head J Saul Kane (aka Depth Charge) remixes ‘Triple X Syndrome’ into a lurching, dubby monster that sounds a bit like a chopped and screwed version of ‘Where’s Jason’s K’. The hip hop influenced rhythm stop, starts and stutters so that the whole track teeters on the edge of being undanceably glitchy but always manages to reconstruct its groove in time. Echoey and mysterious vocals top off the trippy effect and there’s (no lie) the best use of cowbell in a breakdown that I think I’ve ever heard. It’d take some balls to play this out (particularly because the intro is two minutes long) but I like to think there are people out there who’d appreciate it.
TracklistA Savage Skulls (Extended Version)
B Triple X Syndrome (Depth Charge Remix)