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Kris Keyser – Reviver Review

Chiptunes for the dancefloor

I love discovering a new chiptune artist and Kris Keyser is my latest discovery. Releasing his third full album last year, ‘Reviver’ is crammed full of epic high speed crystal clear bleeps and sine waves.

Opener ‘Titan’ gives you a good idea of what you’ll be getting. Its low bit palette is full of crunchy white noise drums harks back to the early days of chiptune but the chipsets themselves are crystal clear and without hiss. This means that Kris’ music straddles retro sounds with today’s modern clean up technology. It’s the same sound across all eleven tracks but Keyser varies what he does with it.

Kris Keyser

Although all the tracks are full of beats and euphoric moments, each track does it differently. Highlights include the referential ‘Hi Mark’ with its rubbery bass lines, ‘Out of Bounds’ and its drum and bass rhythms alongside bleeping arpeggios and ‘Classik‘ for reminding me of the original Shadow of the Beast. None of the tracks are below an excellent standard though and each one has plenty of hooks to enjoy.

So if you are looking for a traditionalist making chiptune music with clear modern day tools, Kris Keyser should be high up on your list. His direct rhythmic approach is rousing and ‘Reviver’ is a strong album. You’ll find me on the dancefloor double jumping.

Recommended track: Titan

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If you have this release, you can comment with your own score below.

Kris Keyser - Reviver

8

8.0/10

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