It’s one thing when a big room house artist puts out a track that’s painful to listen to right from the beginning, but it’s far worse when they butcher a concept that has potential. Hardwell has teamed up with Portuguese progressive house artist KURA on “Calavera,” which starts off promising enough before steering into a full-on assault on the senses.
“Calavera” (which translates to “skull” in Spanish) begins with a world music-inspired melody that immediately gives it more sophistication than a run-of-the-mill big room house track. This obviously didn’t sit well though with either Hardwell, KURA or both of them, because after a couple measures an especially out-of-place vocal sample urges everybody to put their hands up – and it all goes downhill from there.
A pitch bend effect on the melody leads up to the drop, whose notes fail to resolve in a manner that clashes significantly with everything that came before it in the arrangement. Overall, the track comes across as rushed, as though coming up with a progression that would do the beginning justice turned out to be too much of a time commitment for either artist.
Take a listen to the latest from Hardwell in the player above and feel free to drop a comment letting us know what you think.