- Heavee fleshes out his vibrant style of footwork with an RPG-style narrative of self-discovery.
- Ever since footwork gained international acclaim, more and more producers have used its framework to share personal experiences and explore worldly themes. Jlin's Black Origami, Jana Rush's Painful Enlightenment and Nondi_'s Flood City Trax are incredible examples, and Heavee's latest album Unleash is a fourth. The record comes with an RPG game created by Plusminus Studio in which the player is taken through places like the Maze Of Expectations in order to find their authentic self. The game does little to dress up its metaphorical language, but by keeping things simple on the storytelling front, Heavee brings a newfound purpose and direction to the moody and melodic brand of footwork he mastered on Audio Assault.
"Once there was a boy with a secret so dark / A beast inside him that left a terrifying mark," goes the pitched down vocal on "SHOCK N AWE," a bonus track unlocked after completing the game. This haunting take on a nursery rhyme lays out the purpose of Unleash and its accompanying RPG pretty clearly: it's a journey of self-discovery, with the progression you'd expect from this type of game. Rather than thrust the listener straight into the action, the LP offers time to settle in with the ambient-leaning "StarSeeker," which mutes footwork's trilling percussion with soothing pads and crunchy textures. It conjures up the game's enchanted woods, glowing with luminescent mushrooms, where the player can choose to meditate before moving on. There's no such luxury on Unleash, though. Tension arrives straight after "StarSeeker" with the growling low-end of "Unlock," which sounds like that elusive "dark beast" rising to the surface. By the time the album reaches "Whiplash," the beat is jackbooted and relentless.
Heavee's vocals mimic these shifts in mood, taking on the role of protagonist and fleshing out the album's coming of age story. He's as robotic as the zooming effects that whizz beneath his commands to "unleash the freak" on "Unleash," and he's ready to spar on "BangBang," panting on top of the buoyant footwork bassline. His vocals cut a forking path to the one laid out by the heady, unpredictable blasts of sub-bass on "Sumthin' Different." "Here to give you what's missing," he raps confidently, as his verses float through space with a newfound confidence.
Then, Unleash relaxes into something less structured. Until that point everything sounds defined by its place on the album: "StarSeeker" is soft because it's at the beginning, "Whiplash" is hard because it's in the middle. Now—out of the Maze Of Expectations—styles and moods overlap freely. "WorkMe" is almost funny, its lusty vocal ("Ooh yeah motherfucker") gliding over chilled reggae-esque stabs of piano. "Smoke Break"'s woozy soundscape of light percussion, sax and Rhodes piano keys could be lounge jazz if it weren't for the stabbing footwork bassline and jittery percussion underneath. And the synths that soar over pastel pads on "Make It Work" channel the soulful nostalgia of DJ Rashad's best music (like the second half of "Leavin"). It's just a shame it doesn't hold onto that moment for longer, but maybe that's the point: Heavee's unleashed the beast and plays by his own rules now.
Unleash's vague narrative of overcoming inner turmoil could fit anyone's own journey of self-discovery. His lack of detail is a strength, not a weakness. Rather than overcomplicating the themes of the record, it lends a purpose to the way Heavee so fluidly moves between styles, coaxing his eclecticism into something resembling a storyline. By the end, he's shaped a record that's as universal as it is unique to him, another album in the pantheon of artists using one of dance music's most restless and creative genres to fully express themselves.
Tracklist01. StarSeeker
02. Unlock!
03. Search N'4 feat. BABii
04. BangBang
05. CanUFeelit
06. Bounce Dat feat. DJ Paypal & Dan TOG
07. Unleash
08. SeeTheSun
09. Whiplash
10. Sumthin' Different
11. Heart Fragments
12. WorkMe
13. Make It Work
14. Smoke Break feat. HomeSick & Takuya Nakamar