Artist: Max Graham
Title: Automatic Weapon / Does She Know Yet
Label: Little Mountain Recordings
By: Jason Calvert | 18 July 2005
Tracklist:

• A: Automatic Weapon
• B: Does She Know Yet

Max Graham "Automatic Weapon / Does She Know Yet"

Max Graham began producing music back in 2000, and his earlier works include Sepia and Falling Together, both of which are extremely in high quality. Sadly, in 2003 he decided to take a break to re-define his talent and "regain his creativity". When he returned in 2004, his music took on a very different form and definately divided his fans.

Automatic Weapon sets up a bassline which sounds tired before it even begins. As it builds up its intensity, a few more effects are layered in, and a very weak vocal riff is sampled over the top. Just as it begins to build itself up, it then decomposes and nothing new seems to come out of it. While it is not entirely bad, there is nothing original about this work, and it definately lacks that sharp edge to it which gained Max Graham his popularity in the first place.

Does She Know Yet proves that there may still be hope for Graham. The beat immediately takes me back to his earlier works, so that definately gained it some points. As some subtle melodies caress their way around the beat, a trancier melody is thrown down, which detracts from the initial feel that was being set up, and almost contradicts it altogether. This new direction it takes becomes the dominant direction, and we don't see much of the initial groove it had been setting up until the outro. A stripped back remix could definately do this track some favours.

An overall very weak release for Little Mountain Recordings, and definately for Max Graham. Whilst "Does She Know Yet" is definately the better of the two tracks, it still lacks in creativity, and I feel that in attempting to "regain his creativity", he may have lost some of it. However I can sense a slight shift back towards some of his older sounds in "Does She Know Yet", and maybe if he continues in this direction there is still hope of what we can expect in the future.