Nightmare Street

Russian neurofunk trio Teddy Killerz continue to push boundaries within the bass music scene, and I love to see them do that. What I don't love, however, is seeing them do it in the most disjointed fashion possible. 

Unfortunately, their debut LP is, in fact, the most disjointed fashion possible. "Nightmare Street" finds itself to be the model 'fucked around and found out' album — that is to say, Teddy Killerz fucked around with far too many ideas and found out that the resulting project does not stick together whatsoever. To say 'far too many ideas' might even be an understatement, because tracks in this project jut out in the most bizarre ways possible — from the rock in "Wasteland", to the clubby vibe of "Bounce" and "Moshpit", to the Asian leanings of "Bhaaloo", to the abrasiveness of "Coming Home" and the melodic elements of "Ready" and "Stockholm" and the dark themeing of "Teddy's Song" and "Monkey Kingdom" — there's just far too much that "Nightmare Street" tries to do, and hardly any of it makes sense. There isn't even a consistent style, which you would normally expect from a drum n bass album, especially when an artist of Teddy Killerz's calibre embarks on a project. But alas, this is what we are left with. Unfortunately, the tracks themselves don't make it out unscathed either. There are still some bangers — the opener "Teddy's Song" is crazy good, and "King Is Back" is even crazier, along with a couple of other highlights — but overall, "Nightmare Street" doesn't feel like it lives up to Teddy Killerz's typical standard either. The ventures into the clubby vibe in "Bounce" and "Moshpit", especially, feel a little unnecessary and rather bloated in their production and their sampling, but they're not the only culprits — tracks like "Coming For You" and "Unbelievable" feel as if they lack polish too, a quality I did not particularly expect to hear coming into this.

But OK, there was a pretty fair share of the good and the bad. And I wanted to like this LP, I really did, but ultimately I can't say, in good faith, that I enjoy it. The project structure is messy and quite poor, and maybe 50% of the tracklist is equally messy, but it's that other 50% that holds "Nightmare Street" above the surface. Barely. I love Teddy Killerz, but their debut album was just not it.