Excision

Excision has been doing a bit of genre jumping to perfect his take on dubstep. The Canadian DJ has a penchant for incorporating elements of drum & bass, metal and hip-hop to produce an outpouring of bass-heavy, gritty, apocalyptic tracks. While he's been touted as creating a sound incomparable to anyone else, the in your face, aggressive breakdowns on X Rated bring Skrillex to mind. The album is eclectic, to say the least, with huge shifts in sounds between tracks an evident point of experimentation for Excision. X Rated jumps from the filthy, stuttered beats and massive breakdowns of tracks like "X Rated," "The Underground" and "Execute" to the slower-paced, more traditional breakdowns of dubstep with "Jaguar" (featuring the ever-versatile Mr. Hudson) and "Sleepless" (featuring Savvy). Throw in some club-approved, passable electro-house ("Ohhh Nooo" and "Swerve") and a complete departure from everything with a track that runs the gamut by employing drum & bass, dubstep and grimy electro ("8 Bit Superhero"), and, well, you end up with a pretty solid album.