Tha Fruitbat – Tha Fruitbat

Tha Boringbat

Electronic music’s two greatest foes have always been repetitiveness and monotonousness. The same could be said for any genre, but when it comes to electronic music – especially drum ‘n bass and jungle – critics love to employ these two unfavorable observations the most. What makes such disapprovals bearable, however, is the fact that drum ‘n bass is, for the most part, danceable. Just like house music, once the heavy thumps of the bass drops are heard, you can bet that booties are shakin’ nearby. But what happens when this trade off does not exist? Well then, you get something similar to Tha Fruitbat’s self-titled debut.Tha Fruitbat (AKA Eric Schneider) offers us his own brand of d&b/jungle. The LunaticWorks press release paints him as an experimental d&b producer whose cuts are immersed in a “backdrop of vacuous space and oblivion.” Oh boy, they weren’t kidding.

At an exhausting 73 minutes (for only 10 songs mind you), the album suffers from long, drawn out tracks – many devoid of any melody at all. To be fair, the first four songs exhibit some potential. “Tha Outer Limits” is an eerily spacey track complete with robotic samples and sci-fi echoes. “Zanuba,” undoubtedly the album’s strongest cut, is a phenomenal d&b/jungle/break-beat epic of a song. However, there is no reason it needs to be 13 minutes long. After this point, the album starts to go downhill. The next 6 tracks are bland d&b/jungle songs that only vary in tempo. “Space Case,” the album’s closer, is actually a decent track with some semblance of a melody. Unfortunately, most listeners won’t get this far into the album to hear it.