Bare, slightly jolting cuts string the album’s 33 tracks, yet their collective unnerving beauty is unbreakable, with the album’s length only adding to its absorbing, whole-world-in-a-record effect.
Much like Dedication, the line between a happenstance sketch and a studiously crafted composition is blurred to a baffling extent. Tracks arbitrarily fade or abruptly end. Stylistic switch-ups occur without warning.
It's hard to put your finger on exactly what's great about With Love, and the more you think about its component parts, the harder it is to keep the whole thing in sight. But it's one of the most engaging albums you're likely to come across this summer.
There are plenty of small discoveries to be found within each of With Love‘s intricate sound trips, but there is enough mystery and intrigue injected into each textured layer to keep you wanting to find new ways to get lost.
This beautiful mess of splatter-painted hi hats, creaking kick drums, and swooning synth patterns, as confusing as it may be, is something to behold.
The execution is still very much Zomby: With Love veers sharply from rhythmic duress to stoned calm. For an immersion experience, it's reckless and inattentive.
He may be happy to use stock reference points such as the rave siren so overused in todays music, but when the rest of his work that surrounds it is so engrossing this is forgivable.
If someone compiles their favourite 12 tracks from it, they may well have their album of the year, but in its current state With Love is pretty far from a classic.
‘With Love’ is a flawed collection that is on a par with Zomby’s previous work but one that is minted in the producer’s unique persona.
For an artist so intent on self-mythologizing ... With Love feels like a surprisingly comprehensive piece of work. But it's still a rambling outpouring of quick-fire songs. It could be Zomby's magnum opus, or just him getting lost in his own excess.
With Love is the climax to years of activity in which new ideas were thrown around like volleyballs. Aside from its sheer heft, though, it's hard to imagine it converting anyone who doesn't already care.
What could be mistaken for something approaching a masterpiece reveals itself as far more hollow – the sound of a genre-hopping troll demanding the world acknowledge his perceived greatness, regardless of its validity.
With Love’s desire to obscure any traces of the artistic hand that made it is both its most compelling trait and what ultimately prevents it from ascending to the aesthetic nirvana it imagines.
Rather long and vague as proposal, this is dance music mostly for the mind.
Let's follow the dark breaks to their core and probably we will discover the source of the oily roses.
1 | As Darkness Falls 2:08 | |
2 | Ascension 0:58 | |
3 | Horrid 3:09 | |
4 | If I Will 2:23 | |
5 | Isis 2:38 | |
6 | It's Time 3:39 | |
7 | Memories 4:03 | |
8 | Orion 1:13 | |
9 | Overdose 2:33 | |
10 | Pray for Me 1:49 | |
11 | Rendezvous 2:51 | |
12 | The Things You Do 1:31 | |
13 | This One 1:58 | |
14 | Vanishment 1:49 | |
15 | VI-XI 3:38 | |
16 | VxV 1:49 | |
17 | 777 3:06 |
1 | Black Rose 2:25 | |
2 | Digital Smoke 1:50 | |
3 | Entropy Sketch 1:22 | |
4 | Glass Ocean 2:25 | |
5 | How to Ascend 2:54 | |
6 | I Saw Golden Light 2:18 | |
7 | Pyrex Nights 3:13 feat. Last Japan | |
8 | Quickening 2:45 | |
9 | Reflection in Black Gass 1:50 | |
10 | Shiva 1:06 | |
11 | Soliloquy 3:56 | |
12 | Sphinx 2:47 | |
13 | Sunshine in November 1:12 | |
14 | Vast Emptiness 3:13 | |
15 | White Smoke 2:04 | |
16 | With Love 3:13 |
#18 | / | Crack Magazine |
#25 | / | Bleep |
#25 | / | Gigwise |