With his album Where Were You In ’92, Zomby had succeeded in creating a milestone of bass-music. On his often harsh tracks, the bass used to thump, the drums and the squealing synths seemed to be racing one another and all that was broken over and over by horns and gunshots. On his first release after a 2-years-break, the munition is not spent as freely, anymore. However, the finger still nervously jumps around the trigger, and this is exactly where Dedication‘s biggest strength lies: the album is much more melodious, even softer than his former works, and still it doesn’t lose that consistent dark and threatening atmosphere which made Zomby’s sound special in the first place. A bigger playfulness on the synths is the main reason for the disarming of a force that’s still noticeable by the bass going straight for the listeners’ guts every now and then. It’s the moderated violence of Zomby’s music and a permanently resonating suspense that the outbreak could happen any moment, which make this album so very intense. Even the untypical elements (strings, pianos, Noah Lennox) rather help intensifying than clearing the prevailing mood. Melancholy, sorrow, indicated aggression: All these things can be interpreted into the lines of the very many great songs. All in all, Dedication is not as brutal in its penetrating power as his former works, but way more intensive in the atmosphere it transmits.
Dedication
