Beside Panacea´s ¨Low Profile¨, ¨Designz¨ and Dom & roland´s ¨industry¨ the best crossbeat Bastard of dark-/Techstep and Industrial out of the 90th!

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Diagnostics is a dark, gritty, underground drum ‘n’ bass album. It is great for what it is, but won’t appeal to all listeners of the genre. There is hardly any sign of melody or keyboards and the occasional computerised vocals create a sinister feel. The beats are crunchy and raw and the structure to each song is well thought out. This is most definitely an album, not just a collection of tunes (like a lot of dnb LPs) which makes it difficult to pick out a stand out track. Equally hard is to find a song that lets the album down. You won’t here many of these tracks at a club; you’re more likely to hear the album stuck on repeat in a basement of a house party. Technical Itch is an excellent producer and DJ (just listen to Killa Bites II) and has proved with this album that he is also a very good creator of drum ‘n’ bass. Not for the faint hearted, but if you’re into the darkside, you’ll love it.

Technical Itch provides us with dark and complex drum'n'bass tracks on Diagnostics, which sadly is one of Tech Itch's very few full lengths feauturing own material. I would group this album under 'intelligent drum and bass'; not mindless hedonistic music to dance to (which is fun in it's own right), but definitely material for armchair listening. Diagnostics, where computer-terms play a role in the theme, has a strong dark futuristic undercurrent. It's mechanistic, with distorted buzz and peepsounds making up a good part of the soundscape, but also non-linear and organic. The songs evolve on many different levels, like an industrial city grows and changes in various dimensions. This is top-notch material, only allowing the listener to apreciate it on repeated listens, but then leaving him or her hungering for more. Highly original and unique. (Note: the cd version features more material than the LP version)

Many years after buying this, I still consider Diagnostics to be the greatest drum and bass album of all time. The music is intricate and dynamic, unlike a lot of later Tech Itch work. There's a definite techno vibe through the album too, which I appreciate a lot. The only track that still doesn't do it for me is 1730. It's not a bad track by itself, it's just no where as good as the rest of the album.