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Artist: Infected Mushroom Title: Army of Mushrooms Label: Dim Mak Records Date: May, 2012 1. Never Mind 2. Nothing to say 3. Send me an angel 4. U R so fucked 5. The Rat 6. Nation of wusses 7. Wanted To 8. Serve my thirst 9. I Shine 10. Drum N' Bassa 11. The Pretender 12. The Messenger 2012 13. Swingish (Bonus Track) Elder statesmen Infected Mushroom are the Def Leppard of the psytrance genre. Minus the big 80's hair. And probably mother/daughter threesomes, alcoholic binges, and Behind the Music special. For hard rockers Def Leppard it was Pyromania and Hysteria that put them on the map and they've been riding that pony for 3 decades. After those two albums it was pretty much downhill in terms of quality as many a soccer mom could be heard rocking their latest ballad in the Honda Odyssey on the way to little Timmy's qudditch tournament. IM's claim to fame was The Gathering and Classical Mushroom and after that depending on your point of view things may or may not have gone seriously wrong. While still clinging to their roots they seemed to veer off into commercial territory. I defy you to label their music other than what the haters would undeniably call crap. Their last album Legend of the Black Shawarma had it's moments and mixed results so do we have to put up with more singing or have they changed course yet again? One thing you can say is that this project has a knack for pissing people off. As I mentioned with the last album it was the singing. Here it is the equally polarizing field of dubstep. You either love it or hate it. On this effort they combine the carnal robotic knowledge of dubstep with some of the Riddler's funky groove. This is evident from the 1st track Nevermind which will keep the toe tapping and head spinning when it morphs into the wobbly speaker shredding dubstep. Nothing to Say has plenty to say with a nice bouncy beat and melody. Which is then utterly destroyed by one of the worst buildups I have ever heard. Ever. But I love the smashing dubstep that comes immediately after, but why did they have to ruin it with that buildup? Because that's what they f*cking do. Send Me an Angel- Is that Hebrew? Call me an anti-semite if you must, but it's not a very pretty language to sing. I bet he spit all over the microphone. Oh, and this track also has the second (it was very close) worst buildup of all time. U R So Fucked.... yeeeeeeaaaaaaah....... Even if you ignore the title the Trent Reznor-like screaming his nobody loves me angst is absolutely horrible. Luckily The Rat follows and that is some toe tapping fun and a thumping you're only likely to receive if you ask a fat lady when her baby is due. Nation of Wusses continues the funk party forcing Soul Train lines to spontaneously erupt wherever you look. And an uplifting melody? Get the f*ck outta here. Must. Get Down. To Dubstep. And the dubstep is never far behind. As the wobbly and squelchy short track Wanted To proves. The female vocal ain't bad and all I can say is at least it isn't Dudev singing. Serve My Thirst unfortunately sees a return to the singing and it, uh...it ain't pretty. There is more singing on I Shine, but truthfully it's not that bad. The beat is ultra catchy and when that happens you can overlook a lot. At this point I'm still kinda numb but even I can recognize the harsh guitar leads and vocal manipulations that has been the calling card of IM for a while. But because dubstep is their shiny new toy they cram it into the Drum n Baasa track as well. Of course for me it was the most memorable part of that track. Oh, and the painful buildups. Please make it stop. The Messanger is their epic track that shows how musical and theatrical they can be. Symphonic, classical, and very dramatic. Goes from downtempo to very uptempo and back and reminds me of Dancing with Quadaffi. Oh and you didn't think they would leave the dubstep out of this track did you? C'mon, they had almost 11 minutes to fill. The end reminds of some 1980's Jan Hammer soundtrack stuff. Pretty cool. The final "bonus track" is Swingish and I'll be honest at this point my mind is overloaded and it sounded like all the rest of the tracks. Can I decline a bonus track? Look this is what they do and who they are. Let go of the past because it doesn't seem like they have any interest in returning to it. Their style is un boxworthy and all over the place, but their sound production is still flawless. So take it for what it is. A good time. Sometimes I think they manipulate sounds and just make noise because they can. They still bring the beats and let's not forget this is still dance music. It's a lot to take in for one listening, but I enjoyed it. Most of it. Beatport Goa Store Saiko Sounds Beatspace Psyshop Mdk