Skrillex - Quest For Fire (Album Review) [also Don't Get Too Close]
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- Опубликовано: 11 сен 2024
- Skrillex has finally returned with a trendy but enjoyable trip through retro garage, house, OG dubstep and juke that reconfirmed a lot of my old conflicted feelings on him (as well as a bonus alternative R&B project that I'm not officially reviewing but gave a few quick thoughts on).
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Favorite Tracks: Leave Me Like This, Butterflies, Inhale Exhale, A Street I Know, XENA, TOO BIZARRE (juked), Still Here (with the ones that I came with)
Least Favorite Track: Good Space
Overall Rating: 7.0/10
All ratings based purely off of personal enjoyment at the time of this video's upload and either end in .0, .3, .5, or .7. Take nothing I say too seriously.
Skrillex was foundational to my music taste as a wee lad. I grew up with scary monsters and bangarang and his remix of Benny Benasi’s Cinema. They were the soundtrack of middle school and Minecraft with friends. Just hearing a new Skrillex album after 8 years alone got me excited, and I think this record was awesome! Felt like a blend of the classic Skrillex sound I grew up with, and the modern edm scene. We get to hear a wiser and more experienced Skrillex, take on newer sounds, while serving new drops! I’m just happy to see him back :)
Not for me I rather stay in the pass than swallow all his new garbage.
I don't even hate Justin Bieber but the random digs at him in this review had me dying lmao
good review! feeling pretty similarly myself
Over the last decade I’ve stayed up to date with Skrillex’s releases for the most part. I have pretty much always liked what he’s putting out. That being said, I recognize that his dubstep era far outshines his later work… that is, until Quest for Fire. I think Skrillex has announced his return to form in an impactful way, that also isn’t retreading where he’s been previously. It’s a step forward and he’s rapidly catapulting back into household name territory.
People like Skrillex, Flux Pavilion, Deadmau5, Dr P, and Pegboard Nerds were definitely what were the gateway artists into EDM, but once I got into underground techno like Talismann, SNTS, Developer, Ben Klock, and many others, that cemented me for sure into the electronic music scene. I believe that the internet had huge part in it, too. Especially right now with me getting into online based music scenes. People like Saint Pepsi, Bye2, Nanoray, CT57, and Pad Chennington are definitely sounds that are keeping me in the scene at the moment. (Saint Pepsi being more of a transition from floor on the floor rhythms to more abstract ideas of vaporwave and signalwave more specifically)
This. Record. Is. Literally. Fire.
I expected myself to enjoy this album to begin with because of how much I loved the singles leading up to it, but man Quest For Fire is literally all killer no filter (and also better than Recess in my opinion). The production is really intricate and bonkers in the best way, the vocal and production features are great, and the variety is damn near fantastic. It’s hard for me to choose my favorite because I love almost every track here, but for now it’s Leave Me Like This, although this may change because of how close the majority of the tracks are enjoyment-wise. Really fantastic project! One of my favorite albums of 2023 so far and easily Sonny’s best full-length LP to date! The wait was worth it!!!
As for Don’t Get Too Close, I didn’t enjoy it as much as Quest For Fire, although I found it to be decent as a whole. I appreciate how he dipped his toes into a more R&B-like sound compared to the album he came out the day before it, but I’d rather come back to QFF for how interesting and engaging it all sounds. Again, decent stuff for sure and I’ll definitely come back to that project for solely its best moments!
I absolutely adore how the melodic portion of "Don't Leave Me Like This" is constantly reoccurring through both of the albums. It definitely feels like a successfully realized vision, which is always a huge plus.
You know what, I do like Skrillex, but this (Quest for Fire) is actually my favorite release from the guy. This is the project of his where I was most consistently losing my head from raving like a maniac the most and boy did I need Ibuprofen on first listen lol. While Butterflies is also my easy favorite and now my second-favorite song from the guy ever right behind Kill Everybody, I specifically love this album for how fucking well it flows. Never a dull moment, a new favorite dubstep album of mine, currently my favorite of the year.
The scary monsters and nice sprites EP along with Pendulum's Immersion were a pretty big part of my gateway to getting more into Electronic music and so I have a lot of nostalgia for his very early stuff. With you, Friends (Long Drive) is the track I come back to the most out of all his music, that cut is truly special and emotional to me.
I haven’t followed Skrillex’s output since Jack Ü, as I found the project really crappy. However, I think his work from Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites to Recess ranges from very good to excellent. When I went on Spotify a few days ago, I saw Quest for Fire pop up on my home page with the line “Listen to Skrillex’s new album now!”. Admittedly, I was surprised to see him drop an album (on the same day as Orbital’s new album too). After looking through the track list, I was intrigued so I set time aside to listen to it. Turns out, it’s pretty solid. There are some really strong standouts and the weakest tracks are average at worst. The track I was most intrigued by was “RATATA” cuz I thought “Skrillex, Missy Elliott and Mr. Oizo all on the same track? What’s that gonna sound like?” At first, I was a little disappointed to find that Oizo didn’t actually do any production. Instead, Skrillex just sampled Oizo’s track “Postif”. However, after spending more time with it, I do like how the sample was flipped into something new and different from the original.
God I’ve been waiting for an in-depth review on solo Skrillex from you for a while. I love this album so much, it’s easily my AOTY atm. The production is fantastic, the drops absolutely slap, the mixing is insane and the vocalists all do really well here!
Shame Don’t Get Too Close wasn’t good…
(Also ayyyy same favourite song from Recess, Coast is Clear is an underrated masterpiece imo)
To be honest, I never really cared for skrillex, except for maybe scary monsters and nice sprites. After skimming through both albums, I wasn't too keen on them.
I was intending on asking you if you would do a Skrillex review of his two new albums, but you were one step ahead of me and I thank you for that TWA. Honestly I agree with all of your points right there. Skrillex does not deserve the hate that he got back in the early 2010's and doesn't deserve it at all. I only was he a game-changer in electronic music, but also he's possibly one of my absolute favorite DJ's/ electronic music artists alongside with others like Zedd, Wolfgang Gartner, Knife Party. So thanks a lot for the video.
Just out of curiosity, what are your personal favorite Skrillex songs
There's also a certain project he did in Dog Blood with alongside Boys Noize as a highlight effort I wanna point out from him as well before these 2 albums. The Turn Off the Lights EP, which contains Break Law which I jam a lot.
And of course Quest is a banger album, some tracks from Don't Get Too Close I like, but the album I just don't jive with as a whole unfortunately.
His basement set of quest for fire made me do a 180 on Skrillex. The man is a genius!
This album really made me happy. I wouldn't give it anything about a 7 but it was still super enjoyable, especially as a fan of his first ep. Ngl i never really got excited about new skrillex releases because i didn't really like the direction he went with recess, but this album was a really surprising return to form in my opinion. Oh yeah and butterflies is straight flames.
P.S: Cannot wait for your review on the new orbital ^^
Skrillex is one of those artists who in theory should be right up my street, but when I listen to his work somehow never is.
wonky slush
wocky angle
good review, 7/10 seems like a perfect score
Thanks for another stellar review Tommy!
PLEASE REVIEW LORN'S DISCOGRAPHY!!!!
I was super surprised you don't have anything on him yet, at least having tried searching "The Wonky Angle Lorn".
Someone link me a video if I'm wrong!
this is such a good review, agree with pretty much everything you had to say (aside from good space, i actually think that track rules lol)
overall think i got more enjoyment out of both of these albums. and its been great to go back thru skrills older stuff again and remember how much i used to love this guy
I dismissed Skrillex for a while as being “too pop” then I read an article where he was talking about his much he liked aphex twin and I decided to give him a chance. I’m really glad I did! Great stuff in his catalog and I’m loving the new albums too 🔊👏
Haven’t heard either album yet, but ‘Rumble’ is one of my favorite songs of the year so far, so I am definitely interested in hearing it 👍
what are your thoughts on Fred Again and Skrillex doing live shows together? I feel like they have good potential for future collabs
For me, it was "My Existence" which drew my attention to skrillex after a while. The album artwork features the same character as the one from "My Existence" artwork.
as a skrillex fan, i'm gonna agree with you on bangarang being repetitive all the time, despite winning 2 grammys
i like all the other skrillex songs (from his dubstep days btw) except for bangarang for being far too repetitive
I think you should add the "(And Catalog in Brief)" to the title.
eh, not quite, this video didn't have a proper In Brief segment. I handled this video in the same way as I did for my review of the last Celldweller album where I only talked about the most popular releases which were necessary for context building and skipped over the lesser known ones (e.g. My Name Is Skrillex, Leaving, etc.)
Pretty crazy how different people think of this album. Your least favorite tracks are my most favorite one like Tears, Rumble, Inhale Exhale, Supersonic
Inhale Exhale was one of my favorites tho
He gives me the same vibe as Calvin Harris but with Goth makeup
What year is this????
a lot of people are really singing qff's praises. i think it's definitely a very listenable project (i often put on random tracks from it) but little of it really sticks out to me as exceptional. for me it works best as background music and that's kinda underwhelming considering how in-your-face skrillex used to be. i think xena is my least favourite track, it's one of the heavier ones but its structure is a bit too samey(intro-buildup-drop-buildup-drop-buildup-drop-outro) and the use of silence and space doesn't really work for me as well as in other tracks like rumble. it just makes me wish the vocals were used in some completely different context entirely cuz they're good.
dgtc i also find similarly listenable, though even more uninteresting on an artistic level. ive seen some people talk it up as being the more personal of skrillex's two releases while qff is more for his fans, but to me it comes off more like a pop producer portfolio. skrillex's presence is very faint, the beats and production on the album (while admittedly pretty solid in their craft) sound like they could've been done by completely different producers and the lyrics are too disjointed and vague in their theming to convey anything personal themselves (even ignoring that they're all sung by completely different people in every track). also i try not to automatically hate on justin bieber whenever he's brought up but the "covid operation" line was pretty dumb. least favourite track for me was definitely the title track, it has the appearance of being some deeply personal moment in the album but it comes off like it's written by a 35-year-old trying to sound like they're a 12-year-old about to become 13 in a month and the production somehow still sounds too slick and overproduced despite sounding like that (also if this track is meant to be a reconnection with some younger part of yourself or something, why does it sound like nothing skrillex has ever done in neither his skreamo era or his early brostep days)
im also really not that impressed by the shared elements both albums have. it's not a particularly new or inventive concept, it's not done too interestingly and even skrillex himself has already done stuff like this before in his first 2 ep's (there's shared vocal samples and also the electronic voice that bookends both projects). heck, the "oh my god" sample popping up to this day would be a more impressive way to tie his music together if it wasn't specifically just a throwback to the most famous thing he's done that he would probably want to keep reminding you of
hello john lemon
New Orbital review coming?
eventually yes, I'm intentionally sitting on that one for longer than usual tho. might at least be a week or two before you see it just so that I can fully digest it (also waiting for my CD to arrive)
@@TheWonkyAngle I’m sure your anticipation is through the roof. 😃🤘🏼
🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
So where's that Orbital review then 😄
I'm waiting for my CD to arrive before I drop my review. Amazon tells me I'll get my copy March 2 and my review will probably be dropping right after that
given how much of a well-cemented place all 9 previous Orbital albums have in my life, if a new one drops I need the extra time to sit with it in order for me to feel like I can compare it to their previous work
He fell off completely after Bangarang. The quality of Recess is questionable and anything beyond that has been perplexing to me. I'll try to listen to this one and see if it's any better than what I've come to expect from him.
Skrillex from 2010-2014 KING 👑
Skrillex present 💩
Bangarang is a good EP, deal with it nerds