Ultra

At times the tracks become as texturally rich and contradictory as those of Actress on 2014's Ghettoville. [Sep 2016, p.58]

Packed with airhorns, grunts and slashing keys, its tempo shifts at will, a reminder of a singular talent. [Oct 2016, p.99]

With its hypnotic vocal sample, unnerving silences and ever-changing beat, Burial collaboration Sweetz is one of many standouts.

Tough, yet seductive. [Oct 2016, p.40]

Ultra is, at first, quite hard to get your head around. There’s a lot to take in over its 50+ minutes, not so much in the With Love sense of sheer musical volume but more in the new ideas and stylistic left turns that find their home on the album. Leave it to sink in, though, and Ultra works fantastically as an album experience, with sequencing that sees the level of intensity wax and wane as emotions freeze and thaw.

Ultra is also Zomby’s most experimental record in ages.

For every time the record’s constituent parts unite into something engaging, one has to sit through extended periods of meandering, directionless twilight, which frequently hints at an interesting diversion but rarely delivers upon such promises.

Repeat listens don't reveal any deeper logic to its tracklist, which remains a collection of intriguing ideas and not much more.

Although it's not without some dazzling moments, this is the Zomby album with the lowest quantity of thrills.

Zomby’s excellent recent single with grime touchstone Wiley obviously had an influence on the direction, peppering the collection’s R’n’B cut-ups and dubstep-powered techno. Some pieces here, as on previous selections, are miniatures, or riddles filled with strange edits.

Ultra is one for the hardcore fans. [Oct 2016, p.113]

As to be expected in this setting, the collaborations are occasionally guilty of overindulgence.

Freeze and Yeti are not without invention, but sound like they’re covering familiar sonic territory--and this time without intending to.

There’s still a fair amount of self indulgence, and the rare occasion on which you wish he’d stuck to the old habit of micro length tracks (‘HER’ being one such example), but on the whole it’s a well selected body of work.

On Ultra, it simply feels as though something is missing, and overall, makes more sense as an appetizer than the entrée.

Zomby changes style a frustrating amount, and all of it crawls along at a painstaking speed. He's gone for something different here, which is commendable, but the end product, sadly, comes off more pretentious than deep.