From the recent Ghetto Bass 2 and the oh-so-in-vogue resurrection of rave breakbeats (okay, they’ve been back in favour for a while but not this unequivocally), Hervé gets to boxing fish both big and little as he runs for mayor of original jungle mania. The appeal is understandable – everyone loves a bit of early '90s rough and readiness and it’ll certainly give current drum & bass insiders something to consider – but the main bugbear is that homage to the old skool is keeping hardcore/rave pushed back rather than taking it to new places. Yes, it sounds like Hervé has pieced together all of his flyers from yesteryear, but it’s disappointingly retroactive because the keeping alive of original vibes is so precise. Maybe it’s the grumpy old man set chuntering about how nothing’s sacred, but where everyone is issued double-edged daggers in a cutthroat community, unfortunately the likes of Blaze It can only fall on their own sword.
Reset! proffer a remix that has presumably never come across the A-side, a jaunty electro-house pop and whoosh from the Milan unit that has a moderately fun throwaway aspect to it as a squinky synth snake-charmer, so it’s all about the additional No Sleep, which is an absolute destroyer. Constructed in the best traditions of speed garage (or otherwise) match-ups, where a dinky, diminutive, near-queasy lil’ riff gets assaulted by a surging bassline run that decimates a music box lullaby – Serious Danger’s Deeper, DJ Renegade’s Gangsta, CRW’s I Feel Love – Hervé gives his usual laser blazing a spot on the sub’s bench for four minutes of shuffling bass rucking (instead of causing skin to bubble, it’s constantly scrabbling and clawing away), laying into ragga chants bent and reverbed to an inch of their life to the tune of a UFO beam causing eerily fascinating paranormal activity. Arguably one of his best works to date to show the old dog recently upgraded his tricks manual.