Bass 305 may be starting to Depart from their musical roots, but it’s not enough to justify such a dramatic album title. The only signature sounds they’ve completely abandoned are the corny hip-hop samples I was hoping they’d rid themselves of long ago and the robotic voices I was hoping they’d never mute.
Even the audiologist returns on Tones; one of the album’s two best songs previously released on Volume Two of the Bass Explosion series. There are also samples from Nasa space missions, though the one used as the album’s Introduction; an astronaut simply counting down and blasting off; reeks of laziness.
Laziness seems to play a major part of this album. The mastering is flawed; some songs sound louder than others; and some tracks, namely Industrial Computer and the Cyber Bass Woofer Test; the latter of which should’ve actually served as the background to a proper Introduction; sound like filler.
Mark Watson; Magic Mark from the Bass Explosion series; plays the sax on a few jazz songs, which include an Electro (filler) version of Ocean Dance, but they sound disappointingly out of place on a Bass 305 album. Cyber Travel, which launches the album via the aforementioned blast, sounds about right.
305.1, on which the audiologist from Tones gives a lecture about loudspeakers, is a standout. The angelic chorus conjures Does Life Exist. It would be the album’s best song if not for the way it rhapsodizes itself two thirds in. China Doll and Dominican Moondance, despite their traveling titles, go nowhere.
my rating : 3 of 5
1995