Optimus Gryme - Eclipse LP

Rating: * * * *

There are moments on the debut album by local dub step maestro Optimus Gryme (ake Charlie Brown) when you're transported back in time to Bristol during the hazy days of the early 90s when Massive Attack and Tricky were the biggest names in music. He even has a song called Mezzanine, a throbbing dub epic with snappy outbursts of tech step drum 'n' bass.

While that Bristol era might seem like a distant past from which to be mining sounds and inspiration, tracks like Deep Song (featuring the vapory vocals of Waiheke Island resident Fiona Soe Paing) make for a welcome respite from the static textures and forboding beats of the more traditional dub step on offer here.

The best of those is Submerged, with a surging asthmatic beat that escalates into a pounding and aggravated pulse, and Annihilation of the Ego is about as stoic and beautiful as it gets, like Pitch Black slowed down to a dawdle.

What Optimus, who has been one of New Zealand's leading pushers of this brand of music over the last three years, has come up with is an album for dub step devotees and mere mortals alike.

Then again, Eclipse might be a little too ponderous for some, but that's what dub step is all about - getting bassy with it.

Scott Kara