Hardknox

Equipped with the streetwise fury of a junglist, the uncompromising angst of a metal rocker, and the discriminating taste of a Big Beat cut 'n' paster, Lindy Layton and Steve P -- better known as the seasoned production duo Hardknox -- overturn electronic music conventions into bloody, indistinguishable masses of sound. Scorched basslines press up against blistering breakbeats as screaming guitars survey the resulting ruination like shocked onlookers to a train wreck. Featuring a cameo by Schoolly D on their self-titled 1999 full-length debut, the grungy sounds of Hardknox first appeared on Skint Records (home of Big Beat king Fatboy Slim.) Hardknox's window-cracking, wall-shuddering, speaker-busting sonic brutalism plays out like a lesson learned the hard way, spraying hooks with all the lethal fury of gunfire.