Nero – Welcome Reality (2011) [MTA] // Grade: D

With Daft Punk and Basement Jaxx recording soundtracks for sci-fi epics, it was only a matter of time before an act took it upon themselves to do the same, without the benefit of a film to score. On their debut album Welcome Reality, UK duo Nero aim for such orchestral grandiosity, adding a dubstep flair to the electro leanings of their predecessors. The result is a bloated companion piece for a Michael Bay flick that doesn’t exist.

Welcome Reality is over-the-top and formulaic, as if Nero took every stadium-friendly electronic music trend and simply added dubstep’s wobbly low-end to it. “Doomsday” is Bloody Beetroots’ mosh-pit electro; “Guilt” has the diva vocals and synth stabs of big room trance. Throughout the album, soaring guitar and synth lines battle four on the floor beats in a “cock rock vs. dance music” race to the bottom; the title of the plodding “Scorpions” has to be a hat-tip to the German glam rockers of the same name, right?

Du jour dance styles aren’t the only territory that Nero mines for Welcome Reality. Towards the end of the disc, there’s a suite of songs that rip mid-eighties pop without a sense of irony. Samples of the Jets’ “Crush,” Carmen’s “Time to Move,” and the coup de grace, Hall & Oates’ “Out of Touch,” prove that even your parents can enjoy dubstep!

Released more than a year after lead single “Innocence,” Welcome Reality has little in common with the sparse, luvstep romanticism promised on that track. “In the Way” is the only other time we get something that isn’t obnoxiously cranked to 11, its reverb-laced snares a brief respite from the album’s relentless synthesized explosions. The pair of tracks showcase how an act can combine dubstep’s aggression with poppy, mainstream sensibilities; it’s a shame Nero didn’t do more of the same elsewhere.

- Chris Kelly