Altsounds - Milanese - Lockout [Album]

Yet another Planet Mu release, this time from English Dub-Stepper Milanese with his new album, “Lockout”. Milanese is proving that Dubstep, an ever changing, morphing and evolving sound, also has the ability to remain static.

Lockout is a twelve track album that consists of a lot of Milanese Remixes and differing versions of Milanese’s older tracks, on the whole this means that the sound of the album is probably rooted in the Dubstep sound of a few years ago.

Big wobbling bass-lines are inherent to this music and the two step broken beat sound again dominate from the outset. Added to the Milanese production merits, which it must be said is well done, is the sound of MC Ben Sharpa.

Sharpa guests on no less than 4 of the tracks, which gives “Lockout” a distinctly Grime Step feel. The opening number, “ Baby Blue” is standard vocal led Dubstep fare, with some nice production values and some alarm call and signal sounds married to some Tricky-esque vocal characteristics.

Track Two “Wonderful World” and Three “The End” take the album deep into Bass Music territory with big wobbly LFO’d Bass with some MC-ing and Vocal Snippets thrown in for good measure.

Track Four “Ben Sharpa ft Ben Sharpa” is a heavy GrimeStep affair with a nice reversed synth effect coupled with some blippety-blop.

Lockout takes until track six “Unique 3” and track Seven “Disclosure” to really get going. "Unique 3" has some lovely sounds buried deep in it, with some lovely stab synth noises that really take the listener into a euphoric dub-stepped place.

Ben Sharpa really comes to the fore on "Disclosure", where Milanese produces a Dubstep track that has more than one echo to the early hip hop sound, and on top of this, Sharpa does some able rapping.

Unfortunately these two tracks are the only real highlights of “Lockout”. With three of the last six tracks just giving us different remixes of previously heard tracks on the album. Even a Milanese remix of the old classic “Shake Wut Ya Mama Gave Ya” doesn’t lift the feeling that with “Lockout” the listener is being taken for a ride, and not one from Alton Towers.

Electronic music has forever stood on the back of innovation, evolution and its inherent forward-thinking. The record label 'Planet Mu' has now established itself as a bright light in this overly crowded market place, but I get the feeling that Lockout won’t be one of its true successes, as it honks strongly of Lazyness. Not something we have ever associated with electronic music, No matter how repetitive it is.
On “Lockout” it seems there is actually one original song, the rest are remixes and differing versions of previously heard songs. Ok so the “dj’s” out there may want some of the remixes, but for fans of Dubstep, looking for some new tracks, they had better look elsewhere.