Skrillex - Quest for Fire
Skrillex
Quest For Fire
By: Sam Eeckhout
Just like when Skrillex zagged at the height of his creation in the early 2010s, he does so on Quest For Fire.
From the moment Sonny Moore jumped ship from his post-hardcore band From First to Last and dropped My Name Is Skrillex in 2010 (for free on MySpace), Skrillex has been a controversial figure in music.
From his thick black-framed glasses to his hyper-compressed soundwaves and wobbles - he's polarized. Accused of both shaping and bringing dubstep to the forefront while simultaneously ruining it by carrying it to the mainstream, Skrillex plowed on.
And while most music consumers never used the word dubstep before Skrillex, they certainly were shouting it after 2010. Quickly, the sound bled over into pop music, heck, even Britney and Taylor dropped songs with heavy dubstep influence.
As underground music picks up momentum, it eventually gets absorbed by the mainstream, but the brevity of dubstep’s appearance there coincides directly with Skrillex's own career arc.
The world zigged, and Skrillex zagged, leaving behind his massive bass drops and heavy snares, and started exploring collaborations and pop music. He teamed up with Boys Noize to create Dog Blood, dropped his debut album Recess, and dabbled with Diplo in Jack Ü before stepping to the side of the spotlight.
With his mom passing away in 2015 and later acknowledging his own battle coping with alcohol, nearly ten years passed before he returned with his second album, Quest for Fire.
Quest for Fire is an impressively subtle album for a creative musician so well known for aggressive-sounding music. It’s, first and foremost, a dance album. Gone are the wobbles and drops, but instead, a steady diet of dance beats found in a sweaty club.
Throughout the album, Skrillex pays acute attention to detail and a clear homage to the past. From the “OH MY GOD” sample in the opening track from 2010’s “Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites” to the very next track working Mr. Oizo’s 2008 “Positif” as a wobbly melody. He neatly incorporates the “SMOKE EM’” sample on "A Street I Know" from Joyryde’s “DAMN,” who joined Skrillex to help mix and master songs from the record.
It’s not the type of record you can sit alone and put on introspectively. It demands movement and anticipation. It begs to hype up your night. On your way to a party, it will sound completely different than while you go for an afternoon jog.
Over the last decade, his production has skyrocketed into the elite echelon of EDM. Quest for Fire is immaculately produced, from the pitched-up snares and the perfectly placed basslines, to the never-ending vocal splicing.
Seriously, you won’t be able to find a single bar across the album that doesn’t manipulate vocals in one way or another.
Just like when Skrillex zagged at the height of his own creation in the early 2010s, he does so on Quest For Fire. When big builds feel like big drops are coming, they instead settle into a throbbing and downtempo bass groove.
On “Hydrate” and “Inhale Exhale,” the bass is a throwback to the sounds of his early dubstep brethren Benga and Caspa, never exploding for the big climax. It’s a purposeful statement - Skrillex, as usual, is staying one step ahead of the obvious.
There’s plenty on the bone to chew on with Quest For Fire, but long-time fans expecting 10 years of waiting to culminate in a landmark album will likely be let down gently.
Quest for Fire is sonically imaginative, bringing big music to the masses while never sacrificing dynamics. It will be remembered as the most mature album in his discography. And while it isn’t the album you expected, it’s obviously the one he needed to make on his quest.
