- Metalheadz is on a roll. Thanks to a handful of clever signings like Blocks & Escher, Seba and Detboi (and that Burial remix) the label has pushed itself back to the forefront of drum & bass. Its sound in 2018 is club-ready and creative, using melody judiciously and building on the genre's hardy framework with strokes of innovation—familiar but novel enough to stick out. This flow of creativity continues on the label's first solo EP from Hybris, who contours his sharper edges into smooth curves.
Hybris is linked to Noisia's Invisible Recordings and the aggressive, midrange-focused sound associated with it. "Iceworm" channels that energy into something more aerodynamic: the drums are sleek and mixed impeccably, and the slight variations in the rhythm—a flash of a breakbeat, an intense delay effect—help the track zoom along with the energy of an early Sonic The Hedgehog game. The burping basslines of "Common Ancestor" are more in line with the Noisia end of drum & bass, but the timpani-style drums, big and hollow, help dissipate the excess force. A heavy techstep track remade with lightweight alloy, "Common Ancestor" is another example of how the current Metalheadz artists tweak drum & bass into subtle new forms.
TracklistA Iceworm
B Common Ancestor