For what is the broken warrior crying? Mediocrity perhaps, or lack of ambition and vision. Bloke arranges perfectly serviceable melodic drill’n'bass circa 1997, but brings absolutely nothing of his own to the table. The percussion skitters just as described in the user’s manual and the quoted fragments of acid lines jab in and out on cue, but compared to the even the B-list genre originators the highs reach shallower heights, the weird bits are less strikingly weird, the failures are less intriguing in the attempt. The Think break appears as blandly as if decreed by homework assignment guidelines. For the most part, the edits here are entirely pre-DSP, and though that already-dated tangent hardly represents the only path forward, the omission suggests an oddly calculated narrowness of vision. A few brighter melodies near the end at least entice through catchy simplicity, but even that is far too little, far too late.

• "Avoiding Death" Streaming