Nydhog

"Status Notification: Failure" (Demo, 2009)

Self-released

I met this guy at Infest last year. Nydhog is Italian Riccardo Rieti producing a sound that’s a blend of various, overlapping alternative genres – mainly electro, industrial and trance. This polished demo firmly sets out Rieti’s proposition and the results should readily find favour in both a club and live setting (they’ve apparently already opened for electro heavyweights Hocico).

Included in a valued-added nine tracks are Nydhog’s cover of German techno act Scooter's Faster Harder Scooter, plus three of Nydhog’s remixes for others – Infected Mushroom’s Smashing The Opponent, and Celldweller’s Switchback (quite a tasty mashup effect going on this one) and Frozen. Speaking of which, Rieti also remixed XP8’s Our Time on their Drop The Mask single. Though there’s little new ground being broken here, what is served up is competent enough to suggest that those partial to hair extensions, wearing goggles on their foreheads and the vigorous use of glow sticks should check Nydhog out. 6/10

Rob Dyer (March 2011)