Black Tiger Sex Machine - Portals Review

BY GABRIEL MATIAS CASTILHO

If “Bangarang” by Skrillex was the latest Dubstep song you heard, then prepare for a surprise. The Montreal-based EDM hit trio Black Tiger Sex Machine (or BTSM) released their new dark multi-genre album “Portals,” specifically designed to rip your face off and send it to another dimension. It contains 10 songs, 11 collaborations, and travels through a variety of subgenres of electronic music—dark Cyberpunk rhythms of Midtempo; evocative Trap beats; and astonishingly heavy Dubstep drops.

The album opens with BTSM’s collaboration with enigmatic Kannibalen Records singer-producer Ymir called “Sword in Stone”. The initial track is instantly set apart from the rest of the album due to the melancholic “world-building” nature of the lyrics: “There’s no backing out/ This world we face / Can you shut it down? / You’re the key to turning all / Of this around, around”. In fact, it builds the world upon which the compilation’s adventures take place.

From there on out, every new song is a different explosion. “Skull Machine” with Kai Wachi and Wasiu is a festival banger with the smartest build-up lyrics ever—something you would only expect from a song with Kai Wachi: “(Let him cook) / Let me cook!”

BTSM’s song with Canadian producer Hairitage and Houston rapper Hyro the Hero “Mindstate” is a Hybrid Trap banger with so much hype the producers had to take it down a notch during the first drop— allowing for a bit of time to rest after the “We are the chosen children” verse. How kind.

My favorite song is BTSM’s collaboration with Dutch Insomniac producer Dion Timmer and multi-genre Los Angeles singer and songwriter Avena Savage–or RUNN. “Eclipse” is powerful, melodic, and meaningful. It retrieves the world-building sensation initiated in “Sword in Stone”, but gives a more hopeful spin to it instead of the original melancholy. Then, the rest is history: Dion Timmer sets the drop to the next level through his signature style, and BTSM sends it to the netherrealm on the second drop. Truly stunning.