Muffler's latest Album "Stone Cold": A breakbeat romance?

The God of Drum & Bass throws his new album directly into our music player. It's called Stone Cold and shows that even hard breakbeat guys have a romantic streak.

Muffler is the artist that opened my ears for the hard rhythms of drum & bass music, which I think is probably the best music genre for a scene demo, because here brutal visuals are often in perfect harmony with the accompanying tune. Yes, it was this Konsta Mikkonen, the younger brother of scene legend Aleksi Eeben (aka Heatbeat!), whose music I heard for the first time in 1998 when watching the Amiga 40k Intro Superautodrome 2 by Scoopex. In the beginning these beat-heavy sounds disturbed me, but soon I learned to enjoy more and more the sophisticated arrangement of fierce bass and melodic electronic sounds and fell in love with Muffler's music. It is precisely this mix between hard and soft sounds that no other D'n'B artist created in such a perfect way in my opinion, as the super DJ from Finland.

I was excited to hear how Muffler sounds today and I was aware that he's meanwhile rocking at the well known drum and bass label Hospital Records and became a celebrated DJ. But since his departure from the demoscene I very rarely got to hear new stuff from him created over the past 10+ years. Of course, there was the Haujobb demo Prototype 1, for which he donated a track. But that's it in terms of scene activity - at least until this year, so much I can promise to you at this point.

Breakbeat romance

But now we want to listen to Muffler's cosmos of music which he presents to us with the new album Stone Cold. Has his music changed? Is he still able to destroy some speakers with his massive sound? Has he kept his sense for melody and technical powers? These are precisely the issues that concern us and which will be answered with this album.

Twelve tracks Muffler has accommodated on his new disc. The first sounds already prove that he became calmer. Maybe it's because of his age or perhaps he just wanted to do stuff a bit different than before. "Can't breathe" is the first track on Stone Cold, which is able to captivate attention immediately with spherical melodies, the whispering vocals of Sansa and the unexcited accompaniment of those breakbeats. Although tracks like this lacks his former hardness á la My Kingdom. The following tune called "Ranua" continues this way. Breakbeats sound a bit soft, the melody engages immediately and we almost want to enter the dancefloor, but mostly we step back into the chill arena and relax.

Upshift!
A bit faster made are "Northern Lights" and "Mountain Streams", but again without pushing the deep bass to the max. Here it can clearly being heard how important it is for Muffler to include some lovely melodies, so these songs will sound really catchy. For the fifth track which is entitled as "Cosmos", Muffler takes another break and put speed and bass volume back a little, only to prepare for a storm. "Night" is called the next track and it's getting harder and more brutal now. With a bit of techno style mixed by it's the fastest track so far and comes closest to Muffler's old works. Fresh, unusual sounds for this album so far are included in "Joy Ride", or did you hear 80's style music mixed to drum 'n' bass bassline before? That works pretty well and putting on such variety is really needful and useful.

Preliminary conclusion
Meanwhile I know that I have arrived into the new world of sounds by Muffler. The quiet start was nice, very relaxing and generated a real sense of feel good atmosphere. With the steady increase of volume and bass, as well as the successful additions from other soundscapes Muffler has, however, managed to light up the flame of enthusiasm again.

Now it's "Dark Flower" which starts to play. It consists of more than five minutes of the finest breakbeats combined with melodic parts in a sometimes rapid, sometimes relaxing style. Congrats to the artist again for creating such a fine piece of sound work. But then it happened. I wonder if my system is defective, whether I need to buy new headphones or that something went wrong during the mastering of the CD. I can't hear any drums, I don't hear some bass. What happened?

The calm before the rock                                                                                          
"Void" happened. This song gives up on those virtues Muffler is normally familiar with and sends us on a trip into the world of ambient pop. It's something that does not fit to his usual style or to the overall sound included in Stone Cold. But the DJ made a successful move here again and really surprised us. Directly after this break we're going back on track with the track "Stone Cold". It's by far the hardest listening experience so far, with heavy beats, fast paced and some deep sounds which makes this to a track which perfectly describes the rules of drum 'n' bass music.

Then Muffler comes around the corner with another surprise. Track number 11, which is called "Rock", mixes the strumming sounds of an e-guitar with drum 'n' bass pleasure. This turns out to be an unusual, but very stylish listening experience again. And because he liked this so much this guitar also hits the bassline in the last album track "Life". This time with a bit less level of aggression, because the beginning of this track are more like a rock ballad, but also play well with some faster beats in the middle part.

Conclusion
What has Stone Cold done to me? Well, at first it dangled to me some kind of calm before the storm. It was really nice to chill a bit in the beginning before I really wanted to enter the dancefloor, while my heart of rock was satisfied towards the end. Muffler has taken a big hit with this album, that appeals especially to friends of melodic, not too hard made drum 'n' bass music. The courage to mix elements from other music styles into the world of breakbeats must be highly credited to this artist. Thus the danger of getting into monotony is completely eliminated now. You might say that Muffler pays tribute to the mainstream market to reach a broader audience, but hey, this thing rocks many times and these melodies and sounds stick into your ears, so I have to say: Mission accomplished!

Track list:
1. Can't Breath (feat. Sansa)
2. Ranua (feat. Keeno)
3. Northern Lights
4. Mountain Streams
5. Cosmos
6. Night
7. Joy Ride
8. Dark Flower
9. Void (feat. Sandra Weber)
10. Stone Cold
11. Rock (feat. Hannu Vare)
12. Life (feat. Hannu Vare)

Stone Cold@ Bandcamp

Personal Favorites: Northern Lights, Night, Life

Thanks to ne7 for proof-reading and correcting the translation.

Image source: Muffler / BandCamp / Facebook