BY MAX ASAYESH-BROWN, St. Petersburg High

Grade: *****, 5/5 asterisks

You don’t have to look far to find someone who believes all techno music sounds the same. (Chances are, one of them gave birth to you.) But true techno enthusiasts and those with an appropriate respect for deadmau5, arguably the king of modern techno music, will agree that Joel Zimmerman, the Canadian DJ with a taste for scaring children with an enormous mask depicting his stage name, has never had much of a problem with repetition. > album title goes here < is no exception.

I find techno music underappreciated. I like to put my deadmau5 discography on shuffle when I’m doing homework and don’t want lyrics to translate into my essay, or when I’m packing a suitcase. Zimmerman’s music has always served as an aesthetically pleasing continuous stream of colorful beats and unique rhythm, without being monotonous.

Again, many will disagree with this. But when you play > album title goes here < and inflate the volume, and your mother complements the music, either Zimmerman is doing something very right or very wrong. Superliminal, the album’s first and best track, has me convinced it’s the former. Superliminal, as well as many others on the album including Take Care of the Proper Paperwork and Maths, bring to the table the famous buildups we saw in For Lack of a Better Name. Channel 42 is one of several songs equipped with vocals — a rarity among deadmau5’s chiefly instrumental synth norm. Prepare yourself for dark, gritty and cryptic beats all over the map. At one moment Take Care of the Proper Paperwork will be ruthlessly drilling its way into your ears; next moment, it cuts off just like that, as if the song never existed. The moment after that, Closer is slowly making a smile come closer and closer to forming with each strangely optimistic cheep.

Zimmerman’s range and randomness, > album title goes here < assure me, are his greatest assets. I will not so much as begin to speculate on what we’ll hear next.