Doctor P & Flux Pavilion - Doctor P, Flux Pavilion

It was about time, after collab upon collab and the creation of an entire label by these two, that Doctor P and Flux Pavilion drop a collaborative album.

Both original legends of the dubstep scene, as two of the most prominent spearheaders of the brostep movement in the UK, Doctor P and Flux Pavilion rather creatively dub their joint project "Doctor P & Flux Pavilion". I suppose, though, that it describes this album pretty nicely, because it's pretty much exclusively festival dubstep. "Doctor P & Flux Pavilion" explores every niche heavy festival dubstep has to offer — which is, admittedly, not a lot — from briddim to freeform bass, but with a lot more polish than most acts on the stage currently. That's not to say the mixing is perfect, far from it, but I have to say that these two do a commendable job of working with wobbly basslines and sub-destroying dubstep drops, packaged with a bunch of addictive lead lines and growls. Mostly the wobbly freeform bass cuts are more to my taste, but some of the briddim-leaning tracks have serious impact without sacrificing too much, feeling sufficiently dignified enough to hold their own. Clearly Doctor P and Flux Pavilion target less of an overblown loud sound and more of a tasteful one, and although they don't fully succeed in doing so — with more than a few overblown cuts present — the sentiment is appreciated. That being said, it's the execution that counts. Diversity is severely lacking on this project, a pitfall I dearly hoped it would not fall into (it did), with most of the tracklist boiling down to dubstep for the sake of dubstep, with a naturally festival-leaning approach that doesn't quite appeal to an album format. "Doctor P & Flux Pavilion" (the project, not the artists) feels more like a compilation album thrown together than a showcase of their combined abilities and chemistry, the latter of which I'd have loved to see explored more thoroughly; there's some really nice tracks here, from the wobbly "Fluffy Cowboy" with its bass house switchup to the flying lead of "Turbo Time", but with tracks like "Hot Piss" included the record starts to make less and less sense. I suspect some more non-dubstep stuff would be a godsend for this album, but alas, 'twas not to be.

Though I can't deny there are some very addictive tracks here, particularly in the wonkier realms, the hit-or-miss nature of the record — which, of course, the lack of diversity contributes to — lets it down for me. Doctor P and Flux Pavilion feel dignified in their sound, sure, and that's a step in the right direction for heavy festival dubstep, sure, but it's just a really really small step to the point where it's practically negligible. Could be much better, could be much worse, I'm mostly okay with this middle ground.