Music > Album Reviews

Hadouken // Every Weekend

24/03/13

From a band who have been hit with massive criticism but also have gained acclaimed media support from the likes of Mike Skinner and Zane Low, I was unsure what to expect when I first listened to Hadouken’s newest offering, Every Weekend. The album, which includes songs produced by big names on the scene such as Noisia, is a welcome change and development from their former releases. The record begins with massive track The Vortex, which still includes James Smith’s angsty shout/rap but now includes a much more mainstream sounding take on the grime/drum and bass we’re used to from this band and would sound very at home in the dance tent at Reading. Continuing in the same fashion, the music takes a timely change of pace in Parasite where it finds itself placed firmly in the dubstep genre and showing likeness to the success of bands such as Pendulum. From this point onwards, each track seems to blend into the next, not strictly in a bad way, but each fails to provide it’s own individual merits. This is apart from track number seven, Stop Time, in which the tempo is brought down slightly and replaced with a ton load of synths, providing a very needed change from an album that was starting to sound a little samey. All in all, this is a very fast, energy filled album that I can see giving the band a deserved boost to the big time. The songs, although sometimes blending into one another, are very fresh and are destined to be very overplayed this summer!

5/10 Ellie Smith