Pitchfork

It takes a track like "Eye 4 an Eye" to prove how essential DJ Shadow was to the success of the UNKLE's 1998 debut, Psyence Fiction. On that album, Shadow and Mo'Wax founder James Lavelle focused the rhythms of hip-hop through the brave new lens of electronica, giving birth to some rare dark strains of seamless, futuristic hyper-hop. It would help some if UNKLE weren't trying to mimic Shadow's inimitible moody ambiance on this new single, but every sample and musical decision seems deadset on capturing some kind-- any kind-- of "dark" and "mysterious" vibe.

From the opening audio clip ("Even now in heaven there were angels carrying savage weapons"), UNKLE's caricatured rock apocalypse threatens to destroy our eardrums with its pornographic lack of subtlety. Soon, an acoustic guitar partakes in the most pitiful augury, foretelling the arrival of an incessantly repeated sample of a man whose vintage Motown croon undermines his admonishment. Then, naturally, the drums come in at full power, then drop out, then re-enter, all the while "cinematic" orchestration (or is that a Casio?) does its best synaesthetic interpretation of The Fugitive. Eventually, they even get around to sampling the exact same quote from The Thin Red Line ("Does our ruin benefit the earth? Does it help the grass to grow? The sun to shine? Is this darkness in you, too?") employed to much more powerful effect by Explosions in the Sky on their 2001 album Those Who Tell the Truth Shall Die, Those Who Tell the Truth Shall Live Forever. "This great evil... where is it coming from?" I think the answer is clear, Private Witt: England.

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