Album Title: Fist of God
Performers: MSTRKRFT
Label: Dim Mak/Downtown
Play Time:
60'02"
Recorded: 2008


MSTRKRFT's Jesse Keeler and Alex Puodziukas compress thirty years of dance music history (and a little prog rock) into sixty smashing minutes with their sophomore effort Fist of God.


The opener "It Ain't Love" rides the maddening morphing robot rails established by Daft Punk but quickly upends the French dudes' influence with a guitar-stomping prog rock chorus that wouldn't be out of place on Edgar Winter's classic "Frankenstein". MSTRKRFT's ability to push house grooves and analog synthesizers out of their comfort zone is part of what makes Fist of God such a smack down to the senses. The Toronto producers are perhaps the most thrilling duo in dance.


The time-stretching, synth-warping goodness continues with the KC & The Sunshine Band tomfoolery of "1000 Cigarettes", the skin-crawling tones of "Bounce" (featuring N.O.R.E. and Isis), the cold-as-ice instrumental textures of "Vuvuvu" and one for the ladies, "Heartbreaker" featuring John Legend. Like all modern day synth/dance teams, MSTRKRFT also know how to annoy the crap out of you. The album's title track is an incredibly repetitive mash of nose-picking razor-sharp synths and brain-dead rapper samples. But Fist of God must be heard as an album, not a collection of singles. Old school but totally modern, MSTRKRFT are today's 21st century Schizoid Men.