4 out of 5

Label: Central Processing Unit

Produced by: Ciaran Corcoran, Michael Corcoran

Broad but emotive electro, Mikron’s Warning Score combines the slow reveal of the group’s later Severance with a more active edge, evocative of the album’s title. The tracks operate in rather two distinct modes: icy ambience, vaguely futuristic but with a dancefloor momentum that gets chewed and swallowed up by waves of reverb; and tight electro, quite reminiscent of D’Arcangelo (perhaps even moreso given the group setup). Whereas D’Arc excels at grinding out an icy IDM glitchiness amongst the warmth of a track’s bass, Mikron is more focused on that base, keeping a steady hand on the rhythm, and thus linking the two musical styles.

The flip-flopping seems to encourage a bit of bloat, though: several of the ambient cuts have postscripts that just go on too long and threaten to lose the listener – the opening track Embers and midway point Imora being prime examples. But the lead-ins to these are quite excellent, massaging a warm beat into and out of sharpness, tweaking the synths ever so slightly to evolve things; furthermore, the electro tracks are funky and awesome, instant pick-me-ups if – opposite to the ambient stuff – stopping a bit short; and then every few songs lands a perfect slice – perfectly timed, perfectly nuanced, and with a spacey wariness – the music shifting shape mercuriously, but occasionally revealing something inscrutable and curious – that gives the album its unique bite, despite it’s generally patient approach.