Brace yourselves as the Reinforced rebel returns. As confrontational as ever, Paradox shows us he means business right from the opening track, 'Life Without Drums'. It's a driving, percussive workout that illustrates nicely the sheer tribal power of the drum and the bass combination. 'Paroxysm' follows, a less skeletal cut with haunting synth, exploding bass and urgent samples.
'Ambiguity Are Realities' finds it's own, less standardised breakbeat format that crawls through an ultra-spacious, alternating jungle-scape of horns, guitars, keyboards and samples - more drums are added after a minute or two as the sounds become more and more dense and frequent, creating an aura of quiet anxiety.
Five minutes on, the track breaks down to make way for another minimal onslaught where the bass comes back harder than ever! 'Drum & Chase' commences with some haunting synth-mist that would seem innocent enough, but that tell-tale cymbal tap in the background soon gives way to another incredible mid-tempo drum break and we're off again into some eerified car-chase funk music.
'Age Of Outsiders' goes off on a totally neurotic direction with more clashing drums and brooding, filmic strings. By the time you get to 'Furtive Drummer's', another angry beat-heavy track, the fact that Paradox likes drums and prefers them at the forefront of his music has been well and truly made and the rest is in danger of becoming superfluous - there's even two sample groves on the disc so that others can follow his lead! Overall, 'The Musician As An Outsider' is a worthy concept of sonic minimalism and obsessive drum programming which at it's best can be utterly arresting. However, it will probably prove a bit too intense for the casual home listener.
