Cubic Nomad - Forgotten Grounds

One of the most productive producers in current dark techno and doomcore must be Maurice Pinkster. He must spend every moment of free time is his studio making tracks. Besides being The Relic and Hidden Rooms he is also the man behind Cubid Nomad. This project has a more atmospheric side and sits somewhere between the harsh industrial of his The Relic material, and the minimal (hard) techno of Hidden Rooms. 'Forgotten Grounds' is the third album of this project. And while the second one 'Earth 2' was more an IDM album, this one is like the first one. Harsh pounding dark techno it is!

Its also a double album, so its a lot of material. Tracks from earlier EP's are also on it in what seem to be reworked versions, so a part of the album was already available. Much of the material is extremely well crafted and almost all the beat oriented songs will do excellent on the dancefloor. Every song has dark ambient soundscapes with layers of harsh beats and noisy rhythms. It reminds a lot of Ant-Zen stuff like Rogor Rotor or Orphx but more tougher and harder. Best songs for me are "Eternal Believer", "The Seeker", "The Walker Is Here" and "Bunker Soldiers". The absolute highlights however would be the threatening "Prometheus Attack" and the insane Aphex Twin meets Doomcore track "Aural Waves" which is a collaboration with Embrionyc. This song screams insane club hit all over. With a slow buildup into a hard techno section into a beautiful break with narration in which the song develops into a harsh doomtrance monster.

Only thing which sounds awkward to me is the narration of Emma Suzanne. She is featured on a few instrumental short interludes, and a few songs, and she has a thick Dutch accent. But maybe it is myself being Dutch. I can see for people outside the Netherlands it might have an exotic ring to it. So i am not sure what to make of this.

'Forgotten Grounds' is another slab of fantastic dark industrial techno. Dark.Descent and parent label Noisj are stepping up their game, and i see more and more of their sounds pop up on playlists of industrial DJ's and podcasts. Not surprisingly, because it has become perfectly clear by now that the crossover-sound between rhythmic noise, industrial and hardcore/gabba is the next big thing in harsh industrial dance music. Nov 28 2013