Heavy, unapologetic bass drums hammer at the beginning of Dream Detective. As they pull up ready to slam back down again, the listener can hear a soft trilling synth line flutter past in their wake. The notes trail upwards, disappearing somewhere past the heavy impact of the bass drum. Employing a myriad of noises, including what sounds like a cartoon spit sound effect, Lockbox creates a bombastic and unpredictable rhythm. We even hear the grunt of a human voice at one point, the track feeling like the background music for some labyrinthine platformer game.

The main synth line flies against the unpredictable nature of the drums, staying fairly solid and stable in its delivery. Behind it, long drawn out keys begin to appear, coaxing everything in the track to open its frequency range a little bit more. It is as if these keys, quickly becoming the focal point, help everything to rise to the surface a little more. This creeping catharsis draws the listeners attention from one end of the track to the next, imaginative percussion shooting off in every direction behind it all the while.

The artist keeps things fairly even-handed, there’s no overarching emotion driving the piece toward a particular feeling. There’s a creeping sense of artificiality, but really Dream Detective just presents an incredibly fresh and interesting soundscape for the listener to lose themselves in.

The track provides a taste of what may be to come from Lockbox’s forthcoming album Spiritual Malware on the label Primordial Void.