TBTS Reviews: Deadmau5 – 4×4=12

Just the other day I commented to my friendly neighborhood record store clerk that “2010 has been a challenging year for music. Nothing has really kicked my ass yet.” He echoed my sentiment. “Hopefully this will” I said, holding up a copy of Deadmau5‘s 4×4=12. Did it ever.

Deadmau5 (a.k.a. Joel Zimmerman) first entered into my personal realm of existence on the 2010 Mtv Video Music Awards. I was like “This guy is awesome. Who the hell is that?” He then proceeded to rock my socks off and was far and away the best part of the whole show. Now there’s this viral clip going around about a three year old kid that dresses up like him for Halloween, after seeing a stellar performance at the Treasure Island Music Festival in mid-October. A virtual unknown only a few short years ago, Deadmau5 is now heading like gangbusters toward 2 million fans on Facebook. With a full compliment of merch and a new full length disc in stores, things are certainly picking up for the guy that took his artist moniker from a small deceased rodent found in his computer.

4×4=12 (Ultra) is a super tight collage of slick grooves and hard hitting beats. It’s the Energizer Bunny of Electronic Dance Music, clocking in at just under 70 minutes, it keeps going and going. The production quality is about as good as it gets these days, so color me impressed. The only category this disk might fall a little short in would be the guest vocals; they’re not bad, but they’re not great either. Still, up against the rest of this year’s releases, 4×4=12 shines brightly. This could be the one that catches Deadmau5 his first Grammy, to go along with the Juno already on his mantel. Too bad a lot of people have put out their ‘Best Of’ lists for 2010 already, as this will definitely be on mine.