The 5th album ‘State Of The Art’ from Australia’s hip-hop trio Hilltop Hoods comes in with all guns blazing on ‘The Return’, as there’s an Australian rocky country swinging crunch to their driving raps. Then there are blaxploitation era style horns on the tongue in cheek and playful punch of ‘Super Official’ as they announce ‘what we’re doing here is crazy.’ Instead of using electro/ pop as their backing beats and music to back their raps like a lot of stuff recently.
Hilltop Hoods back their call to arms rhymes with rocking guitars, crunchy piano, drums and strings, and the aforementioned horns. On ‘Chase The Feeling’ there’s a full on orchestra, as well as a gospel choir adding an extra dimension to the track, it makes the heart grow fonder. It enhances their moving (sometimes motivational) words making them shine.
There are a lot of things going on in this record. But this being Hilltop Hoods 5th they probably now have a good idea of what they want to sound like. They even manage to rope in the elusive Pharoahe Monch on ‘Classic Example’, which has a cut up kangaroos blues, smokey blues feel to it. The album has some of the inventiveness of ‘Pauls Boutique’ era Beastie Boys mixed with a soul feel to it. There’s also the Aussie gospel funk of ‘Still Standing’, with a hint of reggae, which is quite motivational, its playful but also fairly hard and assertive. Then there’s more rocking on ‘The Light You Burned.’
‘State Of The Art’ should really mark Hilltop Hoods arrival on the hip-hop scene to the rest of the world, and maybe the rest of the world can play can up with what Australia has been enjoying the past few years. Although there’s one rapper in the UK who has already been on their case, Mystro has collaborated with them on his ‘Diggi Down Unda’ album from a few years ago. There’s no messing with this album.
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