As someone who migrated from metal / metal /industrial, I am a huge sucker for collaborations across genres. Much of the music that led me willingly into EDM full force was laced with subtle undertones of the musical elements I would later grow to love and embrace in full. In the same way that many gravitated towards Linkin Park with their clever mesh of rap and rock (a balance that has not been as well stuck for a while now) electronic music is seeing an influx of ‘trap’ music bridging elements of rap with bass-heavy sound.
However as staid acts which have built their sound around a more ‘dubstep’ sound begin to experiment, many older fans find themselves alienated in new releases that seem off-kilter and disjointed. What many of these experimenting acts need is a solid middle ground within new releases that can please older fans as well as explore newer sounds. Krewella appears to have struck that balance.
From a perspective of ‘scene merging’, this is not the first time Krewella has introduced ‘rock’ (or emo, depends on which label you feel fits better) to their music: previous ‘Troll Mixes’ have had injections of rock, emo, and much of the music that occupied my iPod in middle and high school. Whether or not you enjoy Krewella’s sound, from an outside perspective it is important that their newest remix ‘Alone Together’ is possibly the cleverest combination between the genres that the group has released. Production quality aside, taking an iconic group such as Fall Out Boy who plays to their rock aesthetic already present in set design, costuming, and ‘edge’ of Krewella as brand and infusing it with the typical quirks of their ‘usual’ sound is a clever decision.
Despite the fact that their track ‘Alive’ has found its way into a plethora of sets, and ‘Live For The Night’ follows closely along the same vein of vocal-focused ‘lighter’ fare, it is refreshing to see the group stepping out of their comfort zone to test out more ‘wildcard’ sounds that may not be what their fans expect. Acting as a foil to their more daring releases such as the acoustic cover of Pendulum’s Watercolour, and foray into trap with their own ‘Party Monster’, their ‘Alone Together’ remix & We Go Down original serve as a middle ground.
This also isn’t the first time we’ve seen the group balance out new venture with ‘classic’ sound: When experimenting with a cavalcade of different subgenres of EDM, the group’s ‘Play Hard’ disc was littered with everything from Drum and Bass, to Electro, to straight Dubstep. Whether or not you actually liked its namesake track, there was a little bit of everything for everyone present. Similarly, whether or not you are a fan of where their ‘trap’ sound is going, its nice to know that the group will more than likely offer a few tracks with what their fans have grown to love along with a few curveballs to keep people talking.
All the while, within each of their troll mixes listeners could find references to music they loved as far back as high school and as recently as the previous week scattered about like musical easter eggs. In a way, this ‘Alone Together’ remix serves as an ‘easter egg’ for anyone secretly missing their high school (or college depending on your age) fixation with Pete Wentz and ‘Thnks fr th Mmrs’ (or whatever your anthem was).
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