Shackleton : Euphoria Bound
The spacious sounds that dubstep started with quickly got filled in to become brostep and all manner of drop-heavy EDM. New music that maintained the earliest structures of dubstep were suddenly considered post-dubstep, where all that was old was new again. So without changing much, the first families of dubstep—Hyperdub and foundational acts like Burial, as well as what came from Lancashire’s Sam Shackleton, Berlin producer Appleblim, and their Skull Disco stable—were no longer just originators, but the alternative to the alternative to the original. With the new Euphoria Bound, Shackleton comes to recoup stylistic debts owed at least since the days of the first Skull Disco releases.
It’s not quite sensory overload, but it’s also certainly no dip in an isolation tank. Shackleton submerges listeners in sound that throbs and gurgles. The percussive punch of the dub at his roots still lives, but the speed (and half-speed) that came from dubstep has been massaged on Euphoria Bound to something closer to a heart-healthy dancefloor workout. He lifts liberally here from the spooky breaks of intelligent techno and the darkest corners of hip-hop, in particular trip-hop and the short-lived illbient genre. What we hear comes across as an imperative political debate between tuned drums, jingle bells, and programmed hi-hats in front of an audience of murmuring kalimba lines and synth atmospheres.
There are albums (and album reviews) where you can talk about theme and inspiration, about instrumental choices and lyrical references, about artistic development or stagnation. And then there are albums that you just… feel. You could certainly discuss Euphoria Bound in all of those former contexts—we are, to some extent—but it’s that latter one that’s ready to rise to the surface of this LP at any given moment. That there’s not really a memorable groove across Euphoria Bound feels purposeful (as does the use of sinister, death-metalesque song titles like “Crushing Realities” and “The Unbeliever’s Pulse”). Constantly shape- and distance-shifting, mimicking the rumble and occasional shriek of different mass transit lines passing underground, it’s all anonymous and therefore all memorable simultaneously.
Label: AD 93
Year: 2026
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