If Monolake’s 2001 album Cinemascope was the soundtrack to a rhythmically placid, melancholic dream state, Momentum is a marvelous technoid nightmare. Robert Henke, now creatively independent from former collaborator Gerhard Behles, pushes Monolake’s percussive echo dub into the depths of mechanized Detroit techno with an unrelenting grip, shaking from techno all the progressive puffery of the last six years. “Atomium”‘s majestic bass, timpani and wooden percussion ride the fine line between tribal and martial rhythms, further propelled by cascading synth shimmering; so too with “Excentric,” where a devilishly nimble sub-bassline juggles stridently under a theme based on assonant major second chords. Momentum is techno recontextualized for malevolent emotions.