Sean Johnston steps into his Hardway Bros guise to serve up an EP of club-ready tools, and the club that they’re ready for, of course, is ALFOS. So… the tracks all march to Teutonic, “Boccaccio meets Italo”, mid-tempo beats. Wall-shaking, shuddering, juddering formidable thwacks, thuds and thumps. Heavy with Skatt Brothers / Walk The Night sleaze. However, they all also travel a trademark ALFOS’ trajectory from the dark toward the light. The tunes filled with a tension, that builds, promises, then delivers, release. Their striding, stomping supplemented with diverting, gnarly, snarling acidic details, fidgeting frequencies and slowly, steadily climbing energies. Mind-bending, trance-inducing gated riffs. 

Upon its breakdown, Culture Trip introduces blasts of old school rave synths. On the similarly sledgehammered Slow Burn, the drums are doubled with a deft touch of delay. Each anvil hit echoed, shadowed by its own repercussions. Bouncing tightly, tautly, as if dancing on a steel-sprung floor. Conga fills adding a cool organic element, while phasing effects sound like speeding cars. The Medium Is Not The Message also boisterously bangs and crashes to a whiplashing rhythm, but its B-line is bigger, and melodic a la Peter Hook. Flipping its title, a snippet of sampled vocal then informs you that within the music is where true meaning lies.*

*I think this is the same D.F.X. / Dr. Felix sample used in Bandulu’s Guidance.

Hardway Bros’ ALFOS Tools Vol 2 is out now on Outre Mer.