Ed Rush and Optical are such totems of DnB culture since its inception that it’s virtually inconceivable that you’ll be disappointed with their output. Sure, it might not blow you away, but the Virus tracks these guys have produced or distributed represent a transcendental bedrock on which modern drum n’ bass rests. Despite this, there’s no staying entrenched for these two and Travel the Galaxy seems to be something new and a little different, a drum n’ bass concept album that seeks to establish a musical world, evoke a technological tapestry and create a solid soundscape of science fiction futurism.

_Temper _ is one of the illest tunes on the album, all heavy synth, bassy quacks and quirks, futuristic organ hooks. It drops heavy with the drums, solid and driving before a loud horn blares out, there’s a momentary gap, two bars, and we’re at the bass line, no pissing around, straight up darkness with a deep snarl. Great stuff.

Magical Thinking has similar ingredients but the focus shifts, this is a silky, trebly tune, you can imagine this on top of Logan’s Run, just when he realises it’s all turning to shit and is about to scarper. Still heavy bass but with a more dilute drum beat driving it, and a crazy robot trying to warn you of danger scuzzle (made up word but accurate) coming in periodically, ramping the tune up through distortion.

I’ll also have to mention Space Monkey and Schrander’s Dice which finish off this album. The first has a 90-second build up that literally never ends till the tune does, just adding more and more layers, until you can barely handle it, only to get another electro insert before more heaviness drops. I never worked out what the monkey is, there’s a lady singing so maybe she’s a singing monkey, they have them in the future I’m pretty sure, but any how, by about half-way point in this track it’s a got techo and electro elements and you don’t think you can bear anything else, then comes the second drop and it’s delivered so masterfully three times I had to stop what I was doing just to listen, rewind and turn the volume up some more. The latter has got more a discordant vibe, more menacing. Think Terminator, the original. Michael Biehn rigs the tanker truck to blow the terminator the fuck up, only for it to emerge from the flames… coming to get ya!

I’m drawing heavily here on films because that’s what this album is doing. If there was a criticism I could make against it I’d say that it’s almost too dark, without relent (but that’s not really a criticism is it, more a statement) and perhaps some of it’s filler tracks are sort of reminiscent of this pair’s earlier work. But then, given the quality of their earlier work that’s barely a criticism either and to be expected since their early works forms a large swathe of the bedrock on which DnB is built.

Dark, sick, nasty, relentless, imaginative, forceful, provocative and well worth repeated listens. Gotta give this a solid 9/10.