Aphrodite: Aftershock : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

Aphrodite is to drum-and-bass as AC/DC are to hard rock -- his critics might claim that he has made a dozen tracks that sound exactly the same, but they are wrong. Aphrodite has made at least two dozen tracks that sound exactly the same. And this is good, because it's a great sound. Aphrodite, also known as Gavin King, synthesizes his bass lines so they hit you somewhere just above the solar plexus, and hit you hard, and he has refined and fortified his hum-bucking low-end theory until these tracks attack like a swarm of extra-dimensional hornets. "Wobble" winds up slow, as a sub-bass note rises inexorably until it turns into a thick, viscous riff that writhes and surges like black mercury. The nominal adjustment that Aphrodite has made to his sound is a guest-starring cast of excellent rappers. The most incendiary is the lovely and deadly Rah Digga, who rips up "Put a Cut on It" with a blue holler about B-boys who can't handle their drugs and her at the same time, while King drops wicked synth lines that coil up, then strike like snakes. It's all enough to make you forget that in recent years many other drum-and-bass producers have switched to smoother sounds such as dark house or two-step. For Aphrodite, drum-and-bass is still a headbangers' ball.

PAT BLASHILL
(RS 902 - August 8, 2002)