Australian Hip Hop, strings, keys, soul samples and heavy beats. Battle and party tracks, 90s hip hop flashback, beautiful things destroyed, a rapper’s confession to his young boy, a fifty-year retrospective and instructions on surviving a zombie insurrection.
Following on from the successes of The Calling and The Hard Road, Hilltop Hoods (MCs Pressure & Suffa with DJ Debris) present State of the Art – a love letter to both dedicated hip hop listeners as well as their expanded fan base.
The album boasts some clear highlights amongst its slate of hard-hitting tracks. Its first single, ‘Chase That Feeling’, shows off the group’s stylistic versatility in terms of lyrical expression and production – commentary, anecdote, narrative, orchestral strings, keys, soul samples – it’s all here.
‘Parade of the Dead’ is a pumping narrative from the perspective of the survivors of a zombie invasion, which plays like an action-horror flick while remaining legitimate and never a joke. ‘Last Confession’ mixes the intimate thoughts of Pressure with his worldly frustrations, with production ranging from the soulful to the epic orchestral. Finally, Suffa confronts us with a jaw-dropping view of humanity’s failings over the past half-century in ‘Fifty in Five’ – a thought-provoking, raw and dramatic close to the album.
Other tracks like ‘Chris Farley’ and ‘Super Official’ are the usual Hoods’ brand of catchy crowd-pleasers. However, while most of the remaining album is still a superbly produced, charismatic and enjoyable listen, the same level of creativity and uniqueness is missing.
An abundance of battle-edged tracks like ‘Classic Example’ and ‘She’s So Ugly’ are still enjoyable, but make for thematically monotonous listening until about half-way through the album. In the case of the latter, its aggressive presentation overshadows the underlying message. ‘Hillatoppa’ has a hook infuriating enough to mention and continues an off-putting theme of recurring self-promotional rhetoric found in the album.
Ultimately, the exceptional production and scratches, the album’s moments of brilliance and overall lyrical prowess are praise-worthy, yet its inconsistency hinders what is otherwise a high quality release that is sure to satisfy fans.
