Similar to a national treasure-turned-drug riddled athlete, Booka Shade are a shadow of their former selves, involuntarily handing over the baton of techno innovation to more youthful frontrunners with a greater capacity for the upholding of a wilting genre in dire thirst for waters of rejuvenation, much like a post-ecstasy ingestion desire for a shot or two of H2O. Bleary-eyed and bloated, More! doesn’t quite make it to the bar, as Havanna Sex Dwarf bounces about irritatingly before slumping lethargically into a lake of its own upchuck. Just as their latest long player seemingly has no further need of intoxicating substance, we need no more than a handful of the digestible chunks of More! Where Kammermeier and Merziger used to flit fancifully between whichever subgenre took their momentary fancy, they now apparently find themselves stranded amidst a secluded mire of monotony, where squelching sci-fi synths accompany cowbells and vacuous lyrical samples proclaiming the usage of beats as keys to open doors etc (The Door) and dreary synth drudgery that’d possibly be employed to strengthen an anti-drugs, or at least Ibiza dissuasion campaign (Scaramanga). L.A.tely, dubious pun usage by name, concise, brooding house demon by nature is a little special, and harks back nostalgically to the duo’s ultimately exultant days of yore, whilst Teenage Spaceman is arguably their most guttural, emotive piece thus far as it tugs on your heartstrings like gangly puppets attempting to rip each others’ stuffing out. Simultaneously, Regenerate sounds akin to a twisted take on Crystal Castles’ Celestica, injected with lethal doses of circuslike organs and a dash of melancholic longing until it stumbles about haphazardly into a cacophonous amalgamation of the contemporary state of electro. Yet this is precisely where Booka Shade now follow rather than found, flounder rather than flourish, as a genre documentation bang on its sell-by date soon to mould over and hit landfill abysses doesn’t quite feel as essentially relevant as Memento may have done half a decade ago...
