After quite some years in the long grass, hardcore legend Wouter Vonk returns to the stage as Sidephex and releases nothing less than a full-length album. Dominated by the mighty 4/4 bass drum, „Reinstated“ starts as a dark techno voyage, encounters some EBM flavor and acid excursions along the way, before increasingly hardcore beats and industrial harshness creep in for a crushing finale. A high bid for the dance floors, but also a conceptually convincing album for the electronic lover.

After an unsettling “Intro”, Sidephex gives us a triplet of contemporary minimal dark techno, with “The Backyard”, “Mana” and “Secluded” all well-suited for the Berghain-style crowds. “Classico” is a great banger with a most appropriate title, sounding like the collaboration between Robert Armani and Johannes Heil that never happened in 1998 – never forget where the roots are!
“Bring it on” does so, the beats banging harder, making you imagine the crowds go wild, and “Natrium” follows with some sawtooth madness.
“Great San Francisco Acid Wave” is a collaboration track with Juno, and it sure gives you another 303 reasons to love this album. With “Froempel”, Sidephex brings in the distortion and industrial sounds that also dominate “Organism 0.030”, “Ultrasonic”, “Destroy” and “Chaos Returns”, bringing this album to its noisy conclusion.
“Reinstated” takes you from around 125 to over 150 bpm in the course of 70 minutes, and it won’t loosen its grip on you from the first squeak. If it was Sidephex’ proclaimed goal to be reinstated (!) as a major player on the scene, it’s been well accomplished.