Faith in the Future

Überzone’s full-length debut is a collection of brisk cuts offering impatient dance fans everything they’d expect from a funky breaks record — mid-tempo hip-hop rhythms, heavy-duty turntablist scratching, sampladelia, and a parade of effects that never wears out its welcome. Over just a few tracks, Überzone proves he’s one of the best in the breaks crowd, setting it up with an excellent opener (“Beat Bionic,” with back-in-the-day DJ Davey Dave) and keeping the energy level up courtesy of nice collaborations with Afrika Bambaataa (“2 Kool 4 Skool”) and Beenie Man (“Science Fiction”). Aside from those notable highlights, Faith in the Future offers the tribal percussion of “Black Widow” (a co-production with nu-breaks specialist Rennie Pilgrem), an interesting segue into singer/songwriter electronica with Lida Husik, and several undeniably bland productions: “Rhythm Device,” “Bounce,” even the feature for Page Hamilton (lately of Helmet) on “Frequency.” – John Bush