I discovered Knife Party by being introduced to his top hit, "Bonfire", by a friend, and thought it was such a sick sound. It was pulsing, it was intense, and it was epic. I had not listened to much else of his material, however, until I saw he had released a new EP, Haunted House, and thought I'd give it a shot. I did not expect to be as hooked as I am; these songs are on fire.
It begins with the immediately loud and moving "Power Glove", full of huge low sounds, electronic choir shouts, and driving beats. It also contains some more eerie samples, with what sounds like a distorted version of the famous "Psycho" theme showing up a few times throughout the song. I absolutely love the build-up at 3 minutes; it isn't traditional in the sense that the beat doesn't get super fast in the end. Instead, he starts increasing the rate of the beat until near the climax, and then switches the beat into triplets, not often heard today.
The next song, "Lrad", is what really sucked me into the EP. It starts off pretty simple, with just a beat and a little synth here and there. It continues to build, slowly but surely adding more layers and increasing the level of intensity. My favorite part, however, is right after the drop. It's not a dubstep drop with wobbles, but a subtle and sultry drop into a beat with some extra percussion sounds. It completely changes the mood and feel of the song from a Swedish House Mafia jam to this sexy, epic party song. The second drop is even more grimey, with an added clap, a group shout, and a syncopated tom hit. It is absolutely fantastic and epic and sexy, and most definitely my favorite part of the EP.
The third song is titled "EDM Death Machine", and begins with an interesting vocal clip used. The speaker talks about how in the future, "nobody will drop the bass, nobody will do the harlem shake" and continues to make various pop culture references, including a few to his own songs. The beat itself pulses, with some cool synth work layering over it to create a great party and club jam, that slowly builds until a sudden cutoff. The listener then hears some sort of machine starting as the music slowly comes back in, and the beat drops yet again with another synth theme. Knife Party decides to switch it up again, however, and shifts into a much more drum oriented section with an intricate beat set up. To finish it off, the section after the second beat drop is utilized again, making a solid finish to the song.
The final song on this EP is a VIP of one of Knife Party's bigger hits, "Internet Friends". I've discovered that VIP means that a remix by the artist who created the song. I'm not super familiar with the original, but I did not hear a very large difference in the versions. The only major difference occurred at about 4 minutes into the song, with the remix going into a breakdown type beat with a heavier dubstep feel.
This was a very well done EP, with some great beats and synths, a lot of energy, and huge sounds. Go buy it! 4/5
Tracklist:
Power Glove - 4:22 (5/5)
Lrad - 5:15 (5/5)
EDM Death Machine - 4:23 (4/5)
Internet Friends VIP - 5:01 (4/5)
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