Rock the Boulevard, Reach the Bourgeois by French Producer Computer Truck is an album crammed full of diverse musical styles.The album spans 2-step garage dance music, electro, mashups, glitch and ghetto while throwing in 8 bit instrumentation and adding a lo-fi factor to it all. The album is certainly a very interesting listen for those unfamiliar with the various genres. Cut up, time-stretched, pitched up and down vocals and MC rapping populate the album’s various tracks and most were pretty well done. Add in groovy breaks and intricate drum programming and you have quite an album. Friends of Computer Truck such as Wankers United, Ben et Bene and James C. Holmes were also featured on the album. Each brought with them tracks that were stylistically different and this was much welcomed.

With that said, the lo-fi nature of the whole album does get on my nerves a bit but if it’s your thing, you may find it pretty likeable. The electro tracks are considerably cleaner but even then those are not as clean as they could be. Maybe that’s what the album intends to achieve in terms of effect - dirty processed sounds that are raw and in your face. But after many listens, the novelty wears off and a nice clean respite would have been welcomed. There are some tracks like Complementi where the MC rapping comes off really well. Others like I see Zombie seem no more than a mix of beats, bleeps, sound effects and rapping that tries to be interesting but fails because it lacks any catchy rhythm or melody.

Overall, Computer Truck shows us his technical mastery over 2 step garage with glitch and 8 bit influences. The featured artists also brought good variety. The overall product, albeit suffering from a few hitches here and there, is great in small doses.

On a side note, this is also the first release of the netlabel Da Heard It Records. So, congratulations to the fellas over there. Keep the releases coming.

Notable Tracks:
02. Complimenti - A great track where the amount of MC rapping is just right and the sections of the tracks are well introduced.

04. Obtek - Bring the electro

10. Cracovian Scene - I like the distorted vocals here.

Netlabel: Da Heard It Records

Thanks for the recommendation, Michel

*Note: Album contains explicit lyrics*

Download Page Artist's Page
Posted on October 19th, 2006 by adrian · 7 comments