So what kind of statement can Robert Hood, original UR electronic assassin and creator of the impossibly-influential Minimal Nation, make in 2010? As this album’s breathtaking recent trailer ‘Omega’ hinted, the answer is simple; simple being the operative word as he takes his own stripped-down blueprint, refines and hones every nuance then boots it into the 21st century with one of those inspirational concepts like Jeff Mills’ Metropolis project a few years back. Here Hood casts back to Charlton Heston’s classic 1971 sci-fi movie The Omega Man [as homage by Basement 5 on their one and only album around 30 years ago]. Hood was first affected by the film as a child, now realising how its harsh post-apocalyptic vision has reared most frighteningly in his own home city of Detroit, much of it becoming a terrifying ruin after dark. Although some of the tracks are shadowy portrayals of ghost town disintegration [‘The Wheels Of Escape’, acidic ‘Towns That Disappeared Completely’, ‘Saved By The Fire’], he also runs a gamut of emotions, from desolation [The Plague [Cleansing Maneuvers] to the sheer uplifting energy flash of ‘Omega [End Times]’ and ‘Think Fast’, which will just as easily send dancefloors crazy as Hood applies his grasp of less-is-more with riotous consequences. There aren’t many albums worth one listen focussing on nothing but the hi-hats but he uses his like lethal Chinese weapons. Meanwhile, ‘War In The Streets’ brings up the ever-present sci-fi element, recalling a marauding duck with a raygun instead of a beak. Not many albums come along of this calibre – techno as it was conceived with analogue machines set to stun in the hands of a master, but exercising vivid imagination and emotional input. A darkly prophetic masterpiece which , unlike his previous benchmark, will not be so easily heisted and imitated.
5 Out Of 5
Reviewed By: Kris Needs
