InYourBass.com

Rob Sparx is not exactly a young gun in the electronic music production area.
The guy started to release tunes back in the nineties on Twisted Individual's label's Grid, Zombie and Up Yours.

He was making mostly drum n bass at that time, but has experimented with other styles like Electro, Breaks and House. Then he decided to concentrate on writing dubstep as he knew a few of the scene's key players (as he grew up near Croydon and loved the creative freedom of dubstep that other genres lack).

So he had a good amount of dubstep 12" releases on labels like Dubting, Dubbed Out, Audio Freakz,... with big remixes made by guys like Reso, TRG, Distance or Random Trio,...

His release, called Faced Rasta, is even one of the best dancefloor stuff dubstep has seen back in 2007 and was hugely supported by tons of djs like Ramadanman, N-Type, Skream, Walsh, Rusko and many more.

So till now Rob was mostly known for making big tunes for the floors, but now the time has come for him to explore deeper areas for an album.
And indeed that Trooper album which is about to be released on Z Audio does the trick quite nicely.

 
CD 2 will only be available for the first limited editions of the full album and is gathering previous remixes and some stuff only released before on vinyl.

So our attention is more focused on CD1 which is telling us a real story from the first till the last second.

The tunes are full of energy and they nicely avoid the wobbles dubstep cliché.  His tunes introduce you to intense grooves,at some points uplifting atmos and at other times deep and beautiful sonic landscapes.

The album is not only dedicated to dubstep, u can also get some d&b tunes like So Good or Wildlife that are pretty liquid and smooth sounding.
Fully Booked is a wonderful Tech House germ with amazing warm pads and soulful vocals. Thanks to a beautiful sub bassline, that tune, if played in a dj set, can be the bridge between different genres.

My favorites tunes are Bloodbath and Trooper for their amazing tribal beats work on the former and a real meditative vibe in the latter.

ROB SPARX - Bloodbath

But dubby tunes like Messiah Dub or jazzy downtempo songs like Black Sheep are bringing a nice variety in the whole tracklist.

As a conclusion we can say this first CD is full of musical maturity and is surfing in a very nice way between genres. The album is a personal artwork of an artist who is also a good Double Bass, Piano and Guitar player and a very skilled sound producer. So if you like nuanced albums composed out of different deep vibes and that is sounding pretty fat on the soundsystems, jump on this trooper album !

More about Rob Sparx : http://www.myspace.com/sparx3000