Skrillex Book Club: Volume 10 - Quest For Fire (2023)

[hprara]

Image by bepmp3

Time for the tenth instalment in the "Skrillex Book Club".
ICYMI, we're taking a listening journey through the discography of the great Sonny Moore and sharing some of our thoughts along the way.
Last week, we dragged ourselves through the five year drought.

This week, we come out on the other side with...

Quest For Fire (2023)



This is where I started paying attention to Skrillex again. I still wasn't fully following what was going on in the greater EDM mainstream, but I heard an inkling about a new full-length Skrillex album (potentially two of them at that) and it piqued my interest. I heard about it pretty close to release so I didn't really get time for any hype to build but it dropped and I listened to it and it was Pretty Okay. That was kinda it. I listened to it, I liked it well enough, kept a couple tracks in my regular playlists and moved on (ignoring its sister album for now). It wasn't bad or anything, it just wasn't what I was expecting out of a new Skrillex album. But I don't think I even knew what I was expecting from a new Skrillex album being that I hadn't really been "in the game" for a good few years at this point. The excitement of having a new album after this long outmatched the excitement of the actual tracks themselves. We were all excited to see a good comeback story, but what I think we got was only the prologue to that.

Relistening, I think I like this album a little more than I remembered. There are some pretty awesome tracks on here. Most of my standouts come from the latter half. 'XENA' bangs incredibly hard. The psytrance drop in the second half took me by surprise the first time I heard it. The "juked" version of 'TOO BIZARRE' on here blows the original out of the water. It's got such great energy. Lots of fun. Most of the other tracks are just Good Enough imo. They at least have elements in them that I like if not the whole song. My (possibly) hot take is that I don't like 'RATATA' all that much. Just feels very one note. Missy's verse feels kinda phoned in. The Oizo sample just comes off as annoying here and I'm not sure why. I like the original track (subtracting lyrical content and artist chuddery). It think it's funny how she keeps calling him "DJ Skrillex" though.

The biggest points I can give this album are on it's production and clarity. Everything sounds so damn clean. However, I think there are times where that is to its detriment. A lot of tracks feel more like a showcase of sound design or technical ability and some tracks end up feeling kind of undercooked as a result. Yes, this sound is cool. But what does the rest of the song have to offer other than being a vehicle for this cool sound. There are definitely albums that are a lot worse in this regard so I can't dock it too many points for this but still, something to note. At least they don't drag on longer than they need to. The album does feel cohesive though. There is a pretty clear stylistic throughline. The closing track(s) of the album are probably my favourite. They really tie it all together. 'Hazel Theme' and 'Still Here (with the ones that I came with)' feel like a credit roll. The last act of this era of the Skrillex story. We hear little bits of 'Kliptown Empyrean' which is cool (even though I heard this track first). I didn't know/remember Porter Robinson was a feature on this one until pretty recently and yeah, I hear it.

All in all, this one is a bit of an oddity for me. A lot of people crown it as a "return to form" and while I don't know if I agree with that, it did feel like a step in the right direction. Leaps and bounds ahead of most of his output during "The Drought" and Jack Ü. It was a cool moment at the very least. Praise that I cannot extend to the other album released alongside it :/



Now it's your turn!
What are your thoughts on this album? Do you love it/hate it? Have you even heard it? (if not, go listen, the image is a link to it's RYM page)
Speak your mind!

[hprara]

holy shit 1738 topic number, blessed be this thread

[RAW_]

I remember being super hyped for QFF to come out. Even though I wasn't a huge fan of most of Skrillex's output during the drought, this was his first album in nearly a decade, so maybe he was saving the true bangers for an album. Turns out, this was kinda true (for the most part).

The album opens with "Leave Me Like This", a pretty solid house track with an actually good drop compared to the house tracks from the drought. Some nice golden era wubs here too. "RATATA" is just Positif by Mr Oizo with a Missy Elliot feature. Weird but ok. The one thing I never understood about this track is why the word "fuck" gets censored at the end even though she says "shit" multiple times on this song. They even say the fuck word on "Good Space"! Whatever. "Tears" is lowkey a drill song and its pretty good. "Rumble" features Fred Again... who i've never been the biggest fan of. Not a big fan of this track either, its kinda boring honestly. Flowdan's decent on it though. "Butterflies" with Four Tet is pretty decent. That vocal bit sounds like a ytpmv. The little bell solo towards the end is a nice touch as well. That being said, I prefer the single mix over the album version. It isn't that much different to the QFF version, but I just think the new version sounds weird compared to it. Its difficult to describe, but the album version just feels dirtier, but not really in a good way, i don't know. i guess its technically "fuller" than the single version but I'm just not a fan. Honestly I'm just mad that the single version on streaming services has been retconned to the album version. Moving on, there's "Inhale Exhale", which apparently also had a mix change? Not that I really care too much about either version, not bad though. The last minute of "A Street I Know" is fun. WIsh the entire song was like that. "XENA" is a full on slapper, and is the first piece of evidence i would submit for the case that the second half of this album is better than the first. Exhibit B: the juked version of Too Bizaare, which mogs the original by a mile. "Hydrate" is another song featuring Flowdan, which is much better than Rumble. After a cool interlude that takes us back to Sonny's From First To Last days, we have "Good Space", a song I always forget is on here and a song that blows me away each time i hear it because I always forget how good it is. "Supersonic (My Existence)" features Noisia and Dylan Brady. Need I say more? Obviously this is a recipe for success. Best song on the entire album. A close second is the closer "Still Here (with the ones that I came with)" featuring Porter Robinson. What a beautiful feel good track this is. Gets me super nostalgic for the good ol days of Skrillex even though its not a brostep song. Its just a wonderful song about the power of friendship. That EDM synth that plays halfway through hits me every time. Nice callback to the opening track as well. I wish Porter channeled more of this energy for the album he'd drop a year later.

Oddly enough, when this album first came out, i was only kinda lukewarm on it, but has since grown on me considerably. I reckon this is likely due to the album immediately following this being so terrible it made this one seem like more of a masterpiece, but I also think my headspace has changed since its release. I remember being slightly dissapointed that he didn't bring "le epic dubstep" back, but I have since become much more open-minded to the other forms of electronic music he brings to the table here. On an unrelated note, join us two weeks from now where I gush over Skrillex bringing "le epic brostep" back! Join us next week if you wanna hate yourself!

[gauze_]

i remember seeing the promotion video for this album and the next on twitter and i just lost my mind. in that moment i was plunged back into being a skrillex fan the way i was around a whole decade before. admittedly it faded rather quick because i just ended up becoming more enamored with other music while the only single i super cared for took over my life. real spring (from the other album that released the day after) ended up being my most listened to song in 2023. with that, everything else about this album fell by the wayside. i was super excited to hear prentiss on that other album well get to another day, even jumping and yelling when i recognized his voice in the teaser video but just. never listened to it. not even the track hes on. and i still havent listened to that album or ANYTHING from quest for fire. so i guess nows my time to fix that. as usual with my problem of Just Doing Anything, i chose to also listen to the singles that came out after the rollout secretly technically started. with too bizarre and butterflies both being on qff (just different) i figured i may as well listen to everything between those and the album as a teaser. okay im bullshitting you i just Really wanted an excuse to know what in da getto sounded like. and i figured i could twist this into the main topic by also listening to the original mix of butterflies (thanks raw for posting the link in here!).

now for actually listening to these singles i only have a crisp 4! im skipping supersonic and dont go because they both appear on albums and from what i can tell dont have mixing changes the same way butterflies does. speaking of, thats the song? i mean its fine its good just. thats it? i expected a bit more but it was good. okay so ive heard in da getto before. i just didnt know because i never heard it with a track name attached. its like actually kinda good like im not mad to hear this song or anything like that. okay so funny enough almost directly after in da getto skrillex made a different house song with a different latin american artist (jhayco) titled en mi cuarto. and just because its longer doesnt mean its better! the last single from this selection is horizon, with noisia. i also thought this one could be fun to listen to as a prelude the same way as butterflies because while this song doesnt appear on the album, theres another track with noisia that does. ive said it before ill say it again dnb is jingle keys to me this track is solid and the best from this little batch of mine.

onto this weeks topic, can i just say i really dont like when artists also release the entire release as individual singles that just really annoys me. anyways. this album has a lot of different things going on but not in the way recess did a little less interesting than that but like more interesting than youre thinking now that i said less interesting. recess felt a little more like throwing everything at the wall and most things sticking. quest for fire felt like throwing a few certain types of things at the wall and seeing what sticks. so theres the more house / bass house oriented tracks, the more dubsteppy tracks, and some other stuff in between. im overgeneralizing here but you understand i hope. with that being said i definitely liked the more house and bass house tracks the least. theyre all like good to listen to and enjoyable but dont have much else going for them besides their textures. songs like butterflies just dont do enough but they could have. all of these could have had some more and been fantastic but at the very least i can say every track on the album is good. i think flowdan could have been used more but hydrate is really good. the 2 more interludal feeling tracks, warped tour and hazel theme, are both solidly enjoyable and hazel theme really has some sauce. the drop on good space sounds like the song skrillex and hikaru utada made for kingdom hearts 3 but better. i dont really feel much about the rest of the tracks other than 2. XENA AND TOO BIZARRE JUKED ARE SO GOOD. the best songs on the album without a doubt. i know for a fact both are going to get stuck in my head and also played on loop.

over all this album was definitely solid and very enjoyable but i cant say much more beyond that. almost every track feels like there just wasnt enough going into it. they all feel like they couldve had some more sauce put into them and be great but that just didnt happen. i cant hate the album for being potential man but i can say that i wish there was a little more. surely the second album skrillex put out in 2023 will be more polished! and surely well cover that album next week right? see you then!!

best track: too bizarre juked
worst track: warped tour 05 but if thats too easy of an answer because its an interlude i dont know probably inhale exhale
edit: worst track is actually butterflies because its so forgettable i forgot it was even on the album

[bepmp3]

I didn't know/remember Porter Robinson was a feature on this one until pretty recently and yeah, I hear it.

i feel very sure that porter is credited on Still Here because Language is sampled in it, similar to how Positif is sampled in RATATA.

also yes Positif is what i like to call a “problematic bop”

Supersonic and Tears double appreciation post

[hprara]

onto this weeks topic, can i just say i really dont like when artists also release the entire release as individual singles that just really annoys me.

LITERALLY
huge pet peeve of mine. like i get why it's done. i know people aren't into albums like they used to be. but c'mon, you gotta save some of the sauce for later. or else what's the point, just don't release an album.