Krewella: Get Wet

krewella-get-wetKrewella, this EDM group has integrated increasingly popular dubstep with electronic dance music and, they like to keep things interesting with a mix of drum and bass. The trio has rapidly risen to the top since the release of their EP, Play Hard, released in the summer of 2012. Gaining a large fan base and touring to many popular festivals like Electric Daisy Carnival, Spring Awakening, and Ultra Music Festival, this album only raises one important question; where did their ambition go when they were producing Get Wet?

Now when Krewella is firing on all cylinders and producer Kris “Rain Man” Trindl is mashing up the electronic styles that make Krewella epic; there is no doubt, this group will bring a crowd to life! The first track, “Live For The Night”, is a perfect example of this. The LFO, dubstep sounds are well timed to the vocals of the Yousaf sisters–which made this track is absolutely tight. The following track “We Go Down” mixes in drum and bass halfway through the slow paced vocals, giving a sense of acceleration as it progresses. The dubstep movements then pick up this pattern, and use it to produce some awesome cutoff action.

But after the first two killer tracks, “Come & Get It” employs drum and bass with dubstep throughout the whole track but, it all falls flat. In all technicalities there is variation in pace created by the use of the two prominent styles but the delivery is off. The dubstep feels generic immediately and the drum and bass sounds like its been pushed to the back when it would have had more effect if it were brought to the front.

Unfortunately the rest of the album really lacks a good variation in pace. Most of the tracks feel like they reach a certain speed in the progression and then lock the track in cruise control until the end. The worst perpetrator of this would be “Killin’ It”. The beginning takes off quite rapidly but once it reaches this momentum, there doesn’t seem to be much of an effort to keep the listener interested. The breakdowns between the lyrics just seem to repeat, and its this repetitiveness that makes several of the tracks on this album feel very formatted, and at times lazily mix together.

“Dancing With The Devil” is also another track that fatally falls to this repetition. While it does contain great vocals and interesting guitar elements, the track never seems to really “get off the ground”. The lyrics say that they are: “…about to leave a legacy” but the chorus (no longer talking about lyrics) just reuses a generic dubstep break down which doesn’t leave a lasting impression. With a name like “Dancing With The Devil” you’d really expect to be blown away, but Krewella doesn’t deliver on that expectation.

A few tracks also tend to feel like they would lend themselves better to pop but, are instead dressed in melodic synths and a beat to make them pass for EDM. At times it is forgivable, but in the case of “Pass Around The Love”, it sound exactly like what you would imagine a pop song to sound like. It has a slow start that plunges straight into the first verses about an ideal love and living in the moment. Even the sound ecology, which includes sounds from a crowd clapping and faintly chanting along, is pulled straight from the pop music genre.  However, tracks like “Enjoy The Ride” does an excellent job at sounding like EDM even though it has a strong pop feel.

Krewella shows a lot of potential and one can definitely hear what makes them a great EDM and dubstep group but, that goes without saying that Get Wet did not reflect their ambition with every track. Most tracks fall by the wayside while a select few like “Live For The Night” and “Lights & Thunder” shine through as excellent pieces of electronic music. I expect that many hardcore fans will purchase this album in its full form but many more will simply cherry pick the “best songs” and leave the rest to be forgotten.

Rating: 6.2/10
MP3: Krewella “Enjoy The Ride”
Buy: iTunes

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