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Overseer - Everything Louder Than Everything Else

Two stars

First coming to public attention on the strength of his "Stompbox" single, Overseer received the dubious honor of the inclusion of two of his songs on the soundtrack to famed hack Oliver Stone's film "Any Given Sunday."

On his latest EP, Overseer - aka English DJ Dr. Chug - mixes up more of his sound collage rock.

Poppier than the Chemical Brothers but less so than Fatboy Slim, Overseer mixes futuristic synthesizers, drum 'n' bass, dance, rock, and soundtrack samples to create amusing, if not ground-breaking, songs.

His work is not exactly original, but it is not quite derivative, either; Overseer is mining territory that is well covered by American and British DJs, but hasn't been entirely exhausted yet. After all, as long as action movies are made, there will always be a need for cheesy car-chase and opening credit music.

That is exactly what Overseer delivers. His music is never quite interesting enough to stand on its own as listening material, but would serve perfectly as background music.

The songs are hard to pin down; they are better described by what they are not by what they say. Overseer is not as dark as DJ Shadow, not as purist as Aphex Twin, not quite as eclectic - or as much fun - as the Dust Brothers.

Overseer has staked out a rather middling territory for himself. His unremarkable tracks evoke nothing in particular, and he falls into that greatest sin of the musician - blandness.