4EVR - ISOKNOCK

In a twist of fate, the ISOKNOCK project — made up of beloved mainstage producers ISOxo and Knock2 — has dropped a surprise album.

"4EVR" is pretty short for an LP, sitting at just 8 tracks, showcasing the prowess of two of the fastest-rising producers in the electronic scene. Both ISOxo and Knock2 have demonstrated their aptitude for trap and bass house on the big stages, and when they came together to produce a collaborative album, the expectations were very very high. But if there'd be any two producers that could pull it off, many would argue it'd be these two. Unfortunately, it was not to be. And a large part of this was from the production, funnily enough. Stylistically, the combined sampling power between these two is tremendous, and yet I found much of it slightly annoying — sure, the standards are high, but much of the sampling bored or otherwise irked me several times throughout the tracklist. The vibe of the tracklist doesn't help either. I appreciate the attempt at branching out — whether it's the emotive "BLIND" or the trance of the title track — and some of the switches are quite nice in their own right, and yet I can't help but feel that the loss of consistency is a bigger vice to the project than it is an asset. The expectation on this project was that it was going to be a big room trap kind of album, and whilst a subversion of expectations is usually interesting, it just wasn't here. "4EVR" lacked a lot of intensity it should have otherwise packed, even in the tracks that were designated to be intense, and many of the switchups lacked enough substance to justify being switchups. And I haven't even talked about the length yet, but that must surely be one of the root causes of many of the disappointing factors — having a runtime of under 30 minutes feels like it severely holds the tracks back from feeling full and justified, as well as not providing enough of a foundation for the switchups to actually be switchups, instead of the disorganised, unstructured sonic mess the project currently is.

It's not all bad though. Nothing in "4EVR" is actually egregiously bad, it simply just bores me. There are some bangers, sure, but the concentration of said bangers simply didn't cut it for me, and the rest of the tracks couldn't quite make up for that loss. When mixed with the (lack of) length, it's largely the same story — not bad, could be so much better. Ultimately, I don't have any strong feelings inclined in either direction, I just feel like "4EVR" was not worth my time.