Customer Reviews

Killing Puritans

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Get your servings here. Stacks of floppy beats smattered with a stick of greasy grooves and topped with whipped drumkicks and bass lines as thick and sweet as molasses. Would I have ever imagined I would be dancing in my living room to hip hop? Hardly. But this one did it. When the album's finished, I have to stop and wonder, "Did that music just happen? Did I just hear that?" Truly amazing music.

I don't know why some people gave such bad reviews for this album. They say it's not original, it's too loopy, they've heard better, etc. I think Killing Puritan is revolutionary--it shows many talents of Armand Van Helden; he is able to mix and loop metal, jazz, breakbeats, house, hip-hop, rap, electronica and I was quite impressed with his scratching skills in Koochy--and he does all this in one album. It's revolutionary because no one has quite done it as well as he did here. Most DJ mixes are either too repetitive in style or mixing only occurs at the end of each songs. And, I am sick of Hi-NRG house music which all sounds the same and are boring--I'm talking about the type you hear in cheesy clubs. Killing Puritan is revolutionary because he breaks away from mainstream House. The music may not be all that original but the way Van Helden put all together in the album is simply amazing and is very original. Little Louie Vega, Tony Morrillo, Masters at Work are great house DJs but none of them have attempted to create albums as diverse as Killing Puritans. I say, if you like and appreciate house music, this should be a must have album. Don't expect too much to hear Fatboy Slim or Chem Bros, though. It's just different.

'Killing Puritans' Recently he's been inviting controversy by knocking his fellow US house artists for failing to say anything and getting stuck in a rut. His response, in this album, is to use influences and samples that would normally be anathema to house music.

Kicking in with a moody hip hop intro on the title track, Killing Puritans leaps through a whirlwind tour of genres. Breakdancer's Call flirts with drum 'n' bass, electro and leftfield jazz breaks. Full Moon is a seriously old skool funky hip hop groove, while Watch Your Back features former Brand New Heavies singer N'Dea Davenport and settles into a tough and funky groove. Hybridz is pure Jungle Brothers hip house, even down to "house your body" hooks. 'Flyaway Love' is a filtered disco offering, while 'Swamp Thing' nods in the direction of Afro beat.

In drawing on rock, hip hop, electro, drum 'n' bass and early electronic artists, Van Helden mirrors the developments dance acts have been making in the UK and Europe, rather than US artists. Little Black Spiders manages to out do big beat, or rather what it became, at its own game. Rather than adding guitars to dance music, the track simply rocks in a straight-forward, head banging mosh of a metal tune.

Again the references are European and Spiders uses a sample from Hanover's The Scorpions, a band that in its heyday was big with long haired, leather clad types everywhere and simply colossal in Japan. Apart from anything else this is a stroke of marketing genius.

The final skill on this album is the incidental inserts between tracks that range from minimal statements to self mocking conversations and direct political references.

Whether Killing Puritans manages to be as boundary busting as Van Helden intends is questionable.

It certainly isn't unheard of for US house DJs to play rock music (Ron Hardy and Larry Levan were both famous for chucking Led Zeppelin or anything else that worked into the mix) and it's not unusual for house acts to produce hip hop music.

But Van Helden has challenged the parameters of house music and produced that still rare thing - a dance album that works at home.

Quick run down of my favorite tracks...Little black spiders (Scorpions sample), Koochy(Gary Neuman sample), Hybridz an excellent old school house track...I love it. Fly Away love: nice and smooth....with a loong intro. The samples that appear on the web site don't do the CD justice, if you like just the intros that they play you'll love the CD. Over all a very cool CD that gets a ton of play in my stereo in the car...at work...at home...every where ;^) Van Helden...that's a money name huh? Get the CD.

Whatever scene this is, that scene needs to cuts its tracks in half. I like repetitive music, but only when I can put it in the background. Repetition and sandpaper don't mix and fall into the background.

I must admit that I had never heard of Armand Van Helden when I purchased this album, but I am now a fan. I was lead to listen to the record on the strength of the cover art work. A thourough listen will move your feet, and give you plenty to think about. Any quality DJ can move the crowd, but it is quite difficult to make the new generations think. This record not only does this, but it does this well. Check it out.

If you believe the hype about this, this is to house and dance music in general what "Never Mind The Bollocks..." was to rock muic. It's not. I respect that the album tries something new (a lot new, in fact), but experimenting is good only when the music stays high-quality. Here, Van Helden tries to do everything all at once (off-color rap on "Hybridz", Fatboy Slim-esque beats on "Breakdancer's Call", Puff Daddy-style sampling on "Koochy") and winds up doing nothing at all. And as if that wasn't bad enough, the political stance is more blind anger than anything intelligent (a dance artist calling for less technology as he does on the intro?) and the supposedly clever samples are just plain irritating. Only two songs really work: "Full Moon" and "Watch Your Back". The rest is too cluttered up to make any positive impression.

This is doubly hard to do because Armand Van Helden's brought us some great moments before ("Witch Doktor", all the dark garage mixes). But let's call a spade a spade: this is a sub-par dance album that tries to be innovative and winds up simply irritating. Save your money.

Given that Armand Van Helden would only catch my attention once every couple of years with songs like the Witch Doktor and U Don't Know Me (which had to grow on me first) I wasn't intending to pick this album up. But when I read that this album wasn't your same ol' house and saw references to Fatboy Slim I had to give it a try. And yes, it is certainly different, but not ALL that revolutionary, just revolutionary for Armand Van Helden. Instead of dwelling on house, he also digs deep to resuscitate/reincarnate expired musical styles like disco and "robopop", much like Liam Howlett, the Chemicals, and Fatboy Slim dug up some mold for their compilation albums. As was the case when listening to those albums, I didn't find outdated music suddenly fresh just because it hadn't been heard in a while, unless it was creatively used. Furthermore, when Armand comes back to join us in the new decade, he often sounds like Daft Punk. If he has innovated anything, it is the album of one song marathons, for no less than six songs are over 8 minutes long, and frankly, I didn't think that the songs were good enough to handle that, especially when it seems at some points that he lets his computer loop away while he goes out for a cigarette. Your typical Fatboy Slim song is shorter AND has more variety within it, so imagine how straining it is to sit through one of these songs which, no matter how decent they are, seem to out stay their welcome at the 5 minute mark. It's like they're trying to hypnotize you into liking them via musical inertia. Here's a song breakdown for a better idea of what Killing Puritans is about:

1.Intro - Respectable Rant about individualism over conformity over acid jazz backdrop. OK, whatever.

2.Little Black Spiders - 4-second loop of Scorpions riff played over 8 minutes while some woman recites some literary horror about the spider. New ground for Armand, but Rammstein's Du Hast has been there and done it better.

3. Breakdancers Call - Jazzy drum solo, followed by a sound-alike of Chemicals' Elektrobank, interrupted by another drum solo and robotic "Calling all breakdancers" chant. Indifferent.

4. House Boxing - Moaning intro, and 2 minutes of jazz-flavored acapella rap. Not bad, but I've heard better.

5. Full Moon - Obnoxious braggadacio and generic party blabber (including standard roll call of cities, i.e. "New York, Rock the House! L.A., Rock the House!" <SIGH>) over Kool & The Gang type disco tune. Veeeery dated.

6. Koochy - The first release - 2 second loop of "Cars" (which sounds heavier and catchier than the Scorpions riff!) frequently interrupted by random scratching and robo-voice. Catchy, but tedious at 8 minutes.

7. Headhunters - Caribbean "oil drum" one second loop spread out for another 8 minutes+. Festive like Fatboy's ska-sampling Get Up! Go Insane!, but again, overkill settles in at the end.

8. Hybridz - Siren intro and Helden/Sanchez acting like Jungle Brother wannabes (complete with `House music all night long - Say What? chant) rapping over plain, old-school house for 10 minutes! Blech. See Fatboy's Because I Got It Like That remix for a proper Jungle homage.

9.Flyaway Love - Synthesizer noise that ends up sounding like Stardust, sounds of airplanes flying, 7-second loop of distorted voice playing for remainder of 9 minute song.

10. SwampThang - Thought it'd be another rendition of the Grid/BKS song, but it's not. Harmonicas and simulated rattlesnakes over a laid back jungle beat. Not bad.

11. Conscience - Good closer. 2 second loop of modern house covered up by quality soulful singing. But again, it gets long in the tooth at over 9 minutes.

To be fair, I must say that many songs are prefaced and/or concluded by some sort of ranting which took up some time, but some of them were downright moronic. While I applaud his branching-out effort I wouldn't call his musical archaeology expedition pioneering and I'd recommend he look into the less-is-more theory so that his songs would end while we still like them.

Notice that the bad reviews for this album come from places in the middle of nowhere. The bottom line is that this type of music is geared strictly for the most modern and progressive urban masses, people in places like New York City and Amsterdam.

That's it; that's the bottom line. And you know what? Armand is a God. Thank God for Armand, and keep doing your thing, kid!

Oh, and this music is NOT "electronica" or "techno" - this is Garage House, which is a totally different scene completely. For those who don't know, Garage House is grimey, highly creative dance music from the underground pens of places like New York City (birthplace of several massive musical movements such as Salsa and Hip Hop) and Western Europe.

For the countless masses who wish to one day call themselves "New Yorkers," getting caught up on this will go a long way toward understanding the culture and lifestyle of the greatest city on the face of the earth.

Armand Van Helden from NY, onew of my favorite dj's around, made this one back in 2000. Here he mixes diffrent genre's, lots of loops and scratching too which is kind of a trademark for him. I think this album got a little but of everything, and it's great to see those cool sounds recorded on a cd. "Full Moon" is a funky disco sounding song, rapper Common appears on it. "Koochy" is a remake of Gary Numan's "Cars" but with lots of scratching and a robotic voice on it's hook. On "Conscience" we have Tekitha Washington feautured, it's a midtempo song with cool beats same thing with "Little Black Spiders" even if i think these two would have been better instrumental. It's more rock in this one then the previous one though. "Flyaway Love" must be one of the weirdest songs recorded, you get the feeling something is wrong with the cd, but it's not, that's the beauty of it. "Swampthing" got cool beats which are echoing through the record. "House boxing" has to be one of the coolest, funky beats, melodic sound and drums. This man is capable of everything. "Breakdancers Call" is another song includeing a robotoic voice. If you're into dance/electro stuff, well then you should take a look at this. It's one of the coolest cd's around.