Heist – Eyes of Madusa EP Review

There is something satisfying about seeing an EP finally land when some of the tunes have already been floating around for months. Eyes of Madusa from Heist is one of those. I actually found it interesting that “Lean Cuisine,” “Wheezy Ninja” and the title track were already turning up in a Co-Lab podcast back in February, so this does not really feel like four tunes suddenly appearing out of nowhere. They have clearly been sitting around getting played for a while.

Now they are finally together on Calypso, and the whole EP feels pretty much how I would hope a Heist release would feel. Heavy without trying to win an arms race, a little weird in places, and mostly just concerned with making drum and bass that rolls properly. It is four tracks and about sixteen minutes long, which is honestly a nice size for this kind of release.

That podcast is worth throwing on if you want some context because three of the four tracks appear in the mix. Hearing them surrounded by other DnB instead of isolated in a store preview also makes a lot of sense. These sound like tunes made to live in sets.

• Eyes of Madusa
• Lean Cuisine
• Rare Combination
• Wheezy Ninja

Eyes of Madusa

The title track is probably the obvious place to start, and it has been knocking around long enough that some people will recognize it straight away. At just over four minutes, it is also the longest tune on the EP, although none of these tracks are really stretching things out unnecessarily.

What I like about “Eyes of Madusa” is that it has that older Heist feeling of making the bassline the personality of the track. It is not buried under a million layers or constantly stopping to show off another trick. The groove is the thing, and once it catches you there is not much reason to get in the way of it.

There is also a slightly odd quality to it that I enjoy. Heist has never seemed too worried about making every sound pretty, and this feels like another example of that. Sometimes the ugly noises are the fun ones, especially once they are moving at 175.

Lean Cuisine

“Lean Cuisine” might have my favorite title here, although “Wheezy Ninja” is putting up serious competition. It was also one of the tunes already showing up in that February podcast, and this is probably the one I can imagine quietly working its way into a lot of sets without needing to be the big headline moment.

There is a lot to be said for a tune that simply rolls and does not constantly interrupt itself. That sounds like faint praise until you hear how many tracks seem terrified of letting a groove survive for more than eight bars now. Heist has been doing this long enough that there is a confidence to just letting a rhythm work.

It is also sitting at 174 BPM rather than going for anything unusual tempo-wise. Pretty standard DnB territory, but that is kind of the point. Nothing about this EP feels like it needs a novelty angle.

Rare Combination

“Rare Combination” is the one track here that I did not find in that earlier February podcast tracklist, so it feels a little more like the unknown part of the package to me. It is also the slowest of the four on paper at 172 BPM, although I doubt anyone is going to be standing in the rave noticing a two BPM difference.

What it does help with is keeping the EP from feeling too copy-and-paste. Four tracks from the same producer in a similar lane can sometimes start blending into each other, but this release has enough little changes in pace and character that I never really get that feeling.

And “Rare Combination” is a pretty appropriate name for a Heist tune anyway. A lot of his music has always sat somewhere between serious roller business and basslines that sound like they have a sense of humor. That combination is part of why his stuff is easy to recognize.

Wheezy Ninja

Then there is “Wheezy Ninja,” which is probably the least serious track name I have typed into one of these reviews in a while. I mean that affectionately. Drum and bass could probably stand to remember more often that it is allowed to be fun.

This is also the fastest cut here at 176 BPM, and it rounds the release off nicely because it keeps the energy up rather than trying to force some dramatic closing moment. That fits the whole EP. There is not really an “album narrative” to decode. These are four tunes for DJs and people who like basslines, and they seem perfectly comfortable being that.

I also like that the silly name does not mean the track itself has to become a joke. That is something Heist seems naturally good at. You can have titles like “Lean Cuisine” and “Wheezy Ninja” while still making records people take seriously in a set.

Calypso feels like home turf

This release being on Calypso makes sense too. The label sits in the wider Co-Lab family that Heist has been tied into for years, so it does not feel like somebody finding a convenient label for four finished tunes. There is history around it, and Heist has already been releasing a steady stream of music through Calypso recently.

That probably helps explain why the EP feels so comfortable. There is no sense that he is trying to reshape himself to fit somebody else’s catalogue. It just sounds like Heist making Heist tunes and putting them somewhere that understands exactly what that means.

Apparently other people are feeling it too, because a week after release it is sitting right up near the top of the Beatport DnB releases. I do not think chart position automatically tells you whether something is good, especially in drum and bass, but it is nice seeing a straightforward four-track EP like this getting that kind of traction.

How it lands for me

This is probably not the release I would hand somebody if I was trying to show them every possible thing drum and bass can do. There are no giant emotional vocals here, no genre-bending concept and no obvious attempt at a crossover record. But that is also why I like it.

It feels like four tracks made by somebody who has been doing this for a long time and does not need to prove much. There is personality in the titles, weight in the tunes, and enough variation between them that I have a reason to listen through the whole EP instead of grabbing one track and forgetting the rest.

I think “Eyes of Madusa” and “Lean Cuisine” are probably the two I would reach for first, although I have a feeling “Wheezy Ninja” is the title I am actually going to remember three months from now. Either way, this is a really solid little release, and after finding out some of these tunes had been floating around since at least February, I can understand why people were ready for them to finally come out.