Album Review: Vitalic - Rave Age

While most of the lauded techno-crats and other “real” dance music fans have fled screaming from the EDM tsunami, sobbing at the perceived heart of what was dance culture being ripped from its once healthy young chest, one acclaimed producer who has charged towards it arms aloft (and possibly legs akimbo) is Frenchman Pascal “Vitalic” Arbez. One possible response might be to mount the barricades with those angry placards, raise the flaming pitchforks and scream “SELL OUT”. The other could be to reassess this much-dismissed genre, especially given the influence early Vitalic records may have had on EDM's mid-range compressing, violatingly loud sound dynamics.

It's been a decade since Vitalic made his breakthrough with the Poney EP, launching his signature “undulating synthesisers getting chainsawed” sound. Familiar abrasive sound tactics are deployed again here; this time with EDM's unexpected breakdowns and violent pitch shifts. The final results vary from exhilarating to uncomfortably bad – often during the same song. Poorly judged cyber-punk vocals get the better of the bristling riffs in Rave Kids and Stamina, whilst supercharged bass lines, such as those underpinning Next I'm Ready and No More Sleep, are spoilt by gimmicky elements that are, well, a bit silly, to be 100 per cent honest. The good news though is that with this ADD-friendly format, any individual part that you don't like will soon be dumped and forgotten as the track moves elsewhere.

Some will find it frustrating, but Rave Age could spark a dialogue between dance music's supposed illuminati and the hitherto irredeemable EDM urchins.