By Orren Merton

The literature surrounding this BT release compares him to Moby, a longtime one man techno pioneer experiencing large scale success now. However, BT, a techno artist who was first noticed by the mainstream for "Blue Skies" which featured Tori Amos vocals, and Moby actually have very little in common. Both are techno wunderkinds but Moby helped to define a genre, and BT is trying to comfortably tread where others (such as Moby) have gone before. Whereas Moby wears his Blues, Rock, and Goth influences on his sleeve, BT seems most comfortable in a juxtaposition of Hip Hop, Chemical Brothers-style Techno, and 80s style "Modern Rock" a la The Breeders. On the other hand, maybe he is the only one doing that right now, and he is unique. But it's just not as impressive.

That's not to say this is a bad record. When he sticks to a more techno-meets-80s rock vein, like in "Never Gonna Come Back Down," "Dreaming," or "Shame," he gets more than just great techno sounds and rock hooks going, but really catchy melodies as well. On "Shame," he really shows off his voice--unlike many in this genre (including Moby) BT can really sing! The fact that he is simply writing good songs, in their own right, rather than just engaging slices of techno, deserves to be commended. Unfortunately, too often he tries to match Hip Hop vocals and scratching to his songs. Rather than improving the songs, I think they make them sound mundane. That's too bad. While Moby has found that classic blues vocals can take his old school techno-blues to a higher plane, BT mars his energetic, cutting edge techno-rock with rap vocals that reduce the songs to routine urban bragging.