Pessimist – Through The Fog / Peter Hitchens

Blackest serves up a dark-and-dangerous album sampler of Pessimist’s self-titled debut outing.

A side Through The Fog satisfies the up-tempo pleasure centre. Harking back closely the the latter-day Ruffhouse material of which Kristian was a member, it’s another sublime example of how to construct proper contemporary drum n bass – from the no-nonsense intro to the perfectly placed edits, momentum shifts and waves of ambiguous, tension-building texture.

On the flip, we get the curiously titled Peter Hitchens. Unlike its namesake, the tune is no schweffe – it’s a deep-in-the-basement, eyes-down roller, stone cold and poised to give you a big heavy gut punch in the dance and on the hi-fi.

This is definitely one of the rowdiest 12s that Blackest have put out – here’s hoping that it’s the start of a new side for the label – big stuff!