I must say I’ve been waiting a little while to talk about this one!

Why you ask?

It’s probably one of the most controversial entries into this world of Drum and Bass that we love this year. To be honest, this isn’t much of a review. It’s more a blog post/commentary on events as I’ve seen them leading us up to the release of this record.

So where do we start?

It’s been a long time since Lincoln Barrett gave us anything under his High Contrast monkier and when news of this collaboration filtered through the grapevine, we all awaited with baited breath.

I’ll concede, I feared the worst. After attending Brixton Hospitality on Good Friday and hearing his set peppered with Dub Step and sounds that headed in a direction away from all that we know and love about High Contrast, I really didn’t know what to expect.

OK, I did. I was expecting a cheesy trance style dub step cheese monster. I’m not Tiesto’s biggest fan, and whilst I’ve always liked Underworld I was really wondering how on earth it was going to work. So when Annie Mac (Days since dreaming about meeting her in a Zombie Appocalypse…9) dropped it on her show back in September, we listened, we took it in and we reflected.

My first reaction was of surprise. I was a little baffled by the Enigma/Enya-esque opening of Karl Hyde’s vocals and soaring strings. Then I was perplexed as the track suddenly switched, driving into a Camo & Krooked old school style rave breakdown with plunging bass stab. This then rose into another cresecndo, culminating with the cue to finally let the beats roll. Suddenly the track came to life, knee deep in hands in the air territory.  It was energy generating and it had a ‘dancing with a smile on your face’ vibe.  I liked it. No doubt it was a quality production, but there was something about it that didn’t blow me away.  It was different, and it certainly wasn’t High Contrast as we knew it.  However, the further fallout and reaction to the song was Marmite of the monumental!

For those of you who follow me on Twitter (@disco_77) will know that I gave a positive response, albeit stating surprise at the track and new direction of the artist.  For those of you who follow the accounts of the two instigators of this web page of where you read this review, you will have seen nothing but dismay, anger and torrents of expeletives. See JenBen/JadedLine (see what I did there?) are two of the biggest High Contrast fans I know, and it was as if Lincoln Barrett had become Lucas & Spielberg and he’d gone and made Indiana Jones & The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Now I’m one for banter, and I joked with them that they’d gotten too dark with their Drum and Bass and they needed to see the light/happy side of things (Happy vs Darkside, where do I remember that from? Oh yeah, being a raver in 1993). My jokes were met with further dismay,anger and another torrent of expletives.

Then something happened. I went raving. I went out. I listened to the radio, podcasts, mixes. The song was playing. Everywhere. Deep inside my cranium the song stuck. I’d find myself humming it doing my shopping in the supermarket. From being another DnB song to add to the arsenal I already had, it became an anthem in my head. This culminated at the last Brixton Hospitality where witnessing at first hand the reaction of 5,000 people going bonkers to it, (Actually make that 4,998. Jen/Ben were down the front, throwing Lincoln looks of despair, anger and torrents of expletives.) and it made me realise that ‘The First Note is Silent’ is one of THE Drum and Bass anthems of 2011.

Some of you will think I’m crazy. I understand that many of you think of the track as nothing but Cheesy Pop DnB Lite on Toast. You’re right, and that’s why I love it. You should never disregard the importance of songs like this. It brings the music we love, that we’re passionate about to the masses. It manifests the ideologies that Reith had for the BBC – It should inform, educate and entertain!

For when one of the many Joe or Joanna Bloggs of ‘No DnB Experience Road, What’s Jungle Lane, TOP 4TY’ buy this song because they like it, they may go and check out High Contrasts back catalogue. This could lead to them checking out Hospitals back catalogue, then listen to the labels podcast, hear something else they like and their journey to the world of DnB will have begun. Joe or Joanna Bloggs may end up becoming the next big DnB producer some day, and if you’re not raving to it, your kids might be.

So if you don’t like this song, don’t hate, just accept it and move on. You’ve always got the flip of this release to listen to (see what I did there?) ‘Fearful Symmetry’ or as it’s known to me ‘The one which gives Jaded his gurning cum face’. It’s a nice little roller of a tune which is a lot darker than the feature release, foucussing on one distorted loop that changes and evolves as the track progresses. Again, it’s far more electronic in it’s melody and tone than maybe we’re used to on a High Contrast record but it certainly provides a hint to what we can expect on his new album in 2012. It’s certainly not something which will be the main feature of any set, but I’m sure lots of DJ’s will pick this up and something high standard that can be used to move their sets on.

So there you go! Just go and bloody buy this already.

I can’t believe I just wrote a bloody essay on a High Contast record.

The single can be picked up now:
Hospital Records | Drum&BassArena | iTunes