Planetary Assault Systems – The Messenger

Oh my god, why is the best track - "Railer (Further Exploration)" - NOT ON VINYL VERSION!!!!!!

This is indeed a very rewarding album. If "Temporary suspension" was an epic return to form, then I have no idea where to place "The Messanger".
It leaves me ensorcelled after each listen, giving techno music a much needed breath of fresh air.
Although technically designed very much for the dance floor, these tracks sur the level of a mere tool or adequate techno bomb by a dozen miles. As previously stated, Luke Slater relies on a ridiculous, seemingly endless plethora of odd effects, hooks, sounds and structutal ornaments no one would be ashamed of.

Take Beauty In Fear for example. Can you dig the dynamic range in that track? As it slowly unravels, the amount and the depth of the music is just incredible. It starts out almost as a psychedelic chill work out before eventually reaching a more orthodox techno form. The sounds he introduces and pulls about throughout that one is jaw dropping - I played it out loud on my home speakers and was blown away by the layers and layers just pouring out and wrapping their arms around me!

Then you have stuff like Human Like Us, Call From The East and Motif, which is just pure tripped out psychedelic madness to the fullest. Not really percussively aggressive, just down right dazzling. I am particularly fond of Call From The East, which completely kills it with resonant, reverberating high end bells, giving me the chills as soon as the beat is dropped. In a club, it must be causing mass hysteria, nothing less. People just standing there, with a big "what the phuck was that!?" look on their face and wondering just where that came from.
As far as clubs go, Bell Blocker, Rip The Cut, Black Tea and Cold Bolster bring testosterone 10000 watts of mechanical audio madness to the first warehouse near you! Cold Bolster has an underlying, menacing synth that awfully reminds me of the classic Regis tune Speak To Me. Rip The Cut is loaded with discordant, almost industrial like hisses and rusty surface noise, enabling it to get spun even in the moistest and darkest of clubs!
Kray Squid and Black Tea are fantastic teasers as well. While neither one starts really promising, due to their length, they both patiently build, gradually adding layers and then ending in a totally freaked out, tension meets uncontrollable neurosis aural explosion. Really great material for the dance floors.
The only track which doesn't quite cut it for me is Wriss. Not that it's bad, and nothing on this album even dips its toes in mediocrity, but it's the constantly repeating vocal snippet 'wriss' which grows wearisome some two minutes deep. I am sure it will win some fans, regardless.

"The Messenger" goes straight for the club jugular, and with enough styles and variety to go around three times. It's really seldom these days to find a techno album this sure of its own purpose, this confident of its own might and magic, and this cohesive. Despite a pretty wide range of style and sound deployed, I reckon your money's worth should be found in the super heavy, booming warehouse numbers that occupy half of the album, and leave heavy whip marks and contusions. Best described as a kind of brutal minimalism so muscular that minimalism really isn't the term I was looking for. From strobing industrial assaults to cerebral and corporal dance floor trips and mind tingling sonic voyages, "The Messanger" is, simply put, just tremendously well produced techno, pure of heart and deadly effective. Luke Slater is at the absolute peak of the game, and he's not afraid to show it. And to think it's been more than fifteen years since stuff like In From The Night and Angel Street hit the shelves... I would be surprised if this albums does not a become a reference point some time down the line, in near future.

Luke Slater never lost his hardcore. I'm digging his recent work (Boom Tang Shwuck might be my favorite track in that Funf 7x12" box set) more than his older work.
The Messenger rocks. It breaks the techno monotony with psychedelic sounds and dark melodies. There is most definitely Beauty In Fear.
My only complaint is that Railer was left off the vinyl release. I love dj'ing gorgeous ambient music on vinyl, and Railer would have been a sweeter cut than Black Tea.