How is it that liquid drum and bass, of all things, is the sound most likely to make me feel eighteen again? “Now or Never” is Justin Hawkes doing what he does better than almost anyone right now: rolling breakbeats, a bassline with actual warmth to it, and a vocal that goes straight for the throat without getting cheesy about it. The drums are the star, as they should be in dnb, that classic amen-derived roll that somehow feels like running downhill with gravity on your side. Midway through he strips it back to just the vocal and a pad and lets it breathe before the second drop, which is the move that separates dnb that lasts from dnb that’s only BPM. Euphoric without being saccharine, fast without being exhausting. I put it on for one listen and it turned into five, which is the only review metric I actually trust. Hawkes keeps putting out tracks like this without much fuss and has become one of the most dependable names in the genre. This is more evidence.
More Justin Hawkes? Always. Previously: Justin Hawkes & scribe - Wayward