There’s little doubt about the soul-crushing nature of our society’s obsession with working to make a living. We’ve all heard of the Rat Race and are complicit participants and enablers. More than ever before, to obsess about jobs, monies, incomes, expenses, taxes, investments, social security…… that list goes on & on.
‘Hollow Shift – Rat Race’ is a gripping, darkly hypnotic soundscape that couldn’t be a more fitting sonic representation of our human species’s endless, self/collective/planet-destroying ways. ‘Rat Race’ opens with ominous evocative synths and thrashing drum loops. Its immediately frightening and menacing. Aching, despairing female vocals enter, offering a gut-wrenching perspective on how the rat race must appear to someone looking at its monstrosity from outside.
From the very first lines, ‘Put your head in the sand….’ the vocals are giving you nothing but bad news. But superbly contrasted by the tribal sounds. This could make you rave and cry simultaneously. Seriously. It isin’t too often that a track with such a violent reality check also sounds like one of the best techno-trance tracks of the year. One that makes you addictively come back for seconds, each time getting higher but feeling lower. Incredible.
The production is razor sharp and brilliantly maintains its ruthless, relentless energy till the very end. It leaves the listener really wondering if there is any way to really escape the rat race? Or if we as a species are capable of completely flipping the tables on everything that has been created over centuries of careful planning, forecasting, and ultimately dooming?
Good luck listening to this and coming out the same. Its just that good.
