This is a review of "Put Down Your Weapons" recorded by Herdwhite. The review was written by Sam Saunders in 2004.

Herdwhite sounds like more of a music lover and collector than a music creator. Their digital empire runs to a lot of neat bits and pieces, lovingly spliced out of the earlier days of electronic dance euphoria. Orbital and the Chemical Brothers are chief among Herdwhite's claimed reference points.

The 21 minutes of plundering in these four tracks are a bit ordinary-sounding now that we've been there and back and had that loved T-shirt wear thin in the wash. The occasionally real-sounding percussion is the most interesting ingredient, but even for someone like me who never listens to this music deliberately it sounds very retro and very unstartling. Given the power of Pro Tools, or Cubase, or whatever you've got, it does seem a shame to emulate things that have already been done very well. There's an infinite amount of aural space still out there. Boldly go!

Two tracks feature vocals "Put Down Your Weapons" and "Take What You want". They're nice female siren types ("Put Down Your Weapons" credit going to Georgie), surrounded with spacey effects and pulsing blissfulness. Two songs go more dancefloor with steady beats and a nice relaxed approach "Karma (DJ friendly mix)" and the spookier "Focust (Mile High Edit)". I guess it would all go very well in Andy's DJ set, timed in at the right points. But I can't imagine it getting taken up as mood or moment defining stuff in the way that some dance music does. It's light and very pleasant.