76\100

• Three great names together, super high expectations
• The drop is slightly lacking dynamism
• Incredible breakdown, with an interesting structure and personality

“Knockout” left us with a weird flavour in our mouth (and ears), after the first listen. This huge collab between Quintino, MAKJ and Deorro, one of the greatest comebacks of 2018, was going to be EPIC for us… The result was, instead, OK.

The duo Deorro-MAKJ delighted us with three splendid collabs: two back in 2016, and one (“Shakalaka” with Steve Aoki and Max Styler) released one month ago. Bounce lovers were amazed by the combination of their styles, and the news that the two American producers were coming back to their roots this year has been positively welcomed.

However, high expectations sometimes don’t help. We said the same with “Shakalaka”: good, but we were expecting something more. Unfortunately, we have to repeat our words here with “Knockout”. The fact that the Dutch Quintino participated in the production was extremely interesting… In the end, it partially was a good idea.

A signature highly pitched vocal does its job, while the classic squeaky Deorro lead begins to play. The drop, however, doesn’t really amaze us. Quintino used an old-school big room bassline, and this detail doesn’t really add the right dynamism to the frenetic melody (slightly repetitive). The overall effect of the drop is creative and quite nostalgic, but not as explosive as we were expecting.

We must add that Quintino’s style fits really well there! We hope to see another collab of the trio because we smell some unused potential. Then, MAKJ dropped a fantastic breakdown, with personality and genuine passion. No spoilers here, but we felt catapulted in the middle of the ring: a phenomenal idea! It would fit pretty well in a WWE/UCF videogame soundtrack!

In the end, our expectations partially ruined this beautiful collab. Being honest, we gave anyway a good rating to “Knockout” (especially because of the break), because the trio worked in an interesting and creative way… But we didn’t fully enjoy the drops. A different structure (for example, Deorro style in the first drop and Quintino’s touch in the second one, instead of both together) may have been more efficient.

You can listen to “Knockout” here:

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