MSTRKFT – Fist of God (Polydor)
2/5
By: Alex Hibbert
When Jesse F. Keeler slipped from the asphyxiating grasp of DFA 1979’s caustic pounding - teaming up with producer Al-P on MSTRKRFT’s first album The Looks – there was a sense he was trying that little too hard to shift from sweaty revelry and darkened pits to bright lights and fuck-off grins. That album was a vocoder filled piñata: struck only fleetingly between fast thwumps of vacuous warm air. It seems lessons have been learnt though, because Fist Of God is better, not perfect, but better.
The first thing is that the vocoders are gone. Instead Fist Of God is a guest filled house party swilling champagne from the bottle and seeing who can shout loudest above the endless thump of battered synth. The party rarely stops, MSTRKRFT happy to dispel sparing in favour of abundance. The opening couplet of ‘It Aint Love’ and ‘1000 Cigarettes’ both work the synth in spidery webs of thickly cut lines, much more in the style of a forgotten Parisian night with Justice than a bubbling Daft Punk jacuzzi. As Fist Of God wears on though, it becomes clear that whereas MSTRKRFT can slow the tempo to great effect as well as espouse chug-heavy synth stomps – the mid placing of John Legend’s ‘Heartbreaker’ substituting electro breakdown for piano phrased forlorn – they’re rarely wont to do so.
The album instead plays out like a reveller under the influence of one too many ‘refreshments’; a blurry thought trying to piece itself together piecemeal, and rarely successful in its endeavour. ‘Word Up’, featuring Ghostface Killah, should be a face melting spoken word blast of noise (it’s Ghostface Killah!), but instead it’s a mix of about five words - one expletive gets cut into wayward clicks and looped plosives, whereas the instrumental ‘Vuvuvu’ actually pipes in its own audience noise – like a self-congratulatory prick telling someone just how much he earns loudly on an iPhone.
It’s a shame, because there are moments that the glowing light bulb of thought seems to shine through the dense cloud of overdone pastiche, Apart from Ghostface’s clipped takes, MSTRKRFT handle each artist’s input deftly; amalgamating the spittle of individual outbursts and their own clamour with ease. ‘Breakaway,’ also, doesn’t specifically sound hugely different from the rest of the album’s blueprint of pulsing rhythms, but restrains the abundance for a more hushed harmony - Jahmal’s vocal a calming kiss of life at the album’s close.
If dance music is slowly becoming more cerebral, MSTRKRFT are the village idiot to, say, Hercules & Love Affair’s coiffured professor. But if there’s a dichotomy between those that push forwards, and those that fall behind, MSTRKRFT seem happy to stray from the group with a troupe load of believers shifting their feet endlessly behind – a haphazard moving image of twisted limbs and full-on gurns. God bless the party, amen.
Artists in this article: MSTRKRFT
Your Feedback
Login to post your comment