I can count on my one hand the number of times a record on artwork and title alone has got me excited for a record, but this moves right to the top of the fucking list!
With a duo so powerful it literally feels like you’re listening to a pair of mutants flexing their superpowers, this new record is one for the books! Let’s talk about it!
This is the brand-new record by MC’s Supreme Cerebral and Banish Habitual! Together with producers Clypto and Kaoss, they help bring forth 12 dominant tracks featuring
– Eloh Kush
– Planet Asia
– O the Great
– Lethal Furguson
– Alpha_Betic
And let me say this, this collaboration is absolutely MONSTROUS. Everything from the performances, flow, rhythm, energy, conviction, pen game, cadence, bar set-ups— everything is top-tier between the duo.
As soon as we hear them across the opening track, it’s clear (as they say themselves in the second track) ‘this is grown folks’ music, who better to do it?’ And with that attitude in mind, they proceed to inherit their verbal savagery and go berserk like Logan on the instrumentals!
Both ridiculous MC’s in their own rights, but when they come together for the collaboration, pure unadulterated magic happens. It gave me goosebumps to hear one pass the second verse to the other and watch them kill it!
Watching their unique characteristics combine into one synchronous effort that is enough to stomp out any of your favourite rappers!
The risk that I’ve come across way too many times in my experience hearing collaboration albums is that one outshines the other and causes an awkward and obvious power shift that makes the listening experience weaken as a result.
BUT on this record, we have two iconic equals who match each other’s strengths, skill, and experience!
It’s like two brothers coming into the studio and complimenting each other’s qualities!
On top of their own strengths together, they also share extraordinary chemistry with the features involved on the album! Adding only the strongest in the underground right now and bringing them in for the sole purpose of massacring the tracks, and that’s exactly what they do!
As far as the production goes. We have another set of pairs that are responsible for bringing the sonic flames to adapt to the verbal heat provided, and these two execute the task perfectly! Across these 12 songs, we have nothing but the strongest and most powerful adaptations of the underground hip-hop sound!
This whole record plays like a score of the highest order. A fluent, crisp, and vivid soundscape that feels both cinematic and muddy in the same sentence!
A few key tracks that stood out to me are as follows. We have that dynamic intro track ‘Stove Broke’ that has that classic example of ‘boom bap’ excellence with that classical vocal sample loop alongside those subtle piano keys and violin strings engaging the track to its maximum potential!
It has that early 2010s energy to it that I fuck with heavy! It’s minimal and yet surreal in proportion!
We have the track ‘Project Ethics’ which I love mainly because I’m pretty sure Clypto sampled the song ‘Speaking Gently’ by ‘BadBadNotGood’ off their album ‘IV’.
That loop is happiness in my ears as I love that album and song very much! It provides such a nice, spacious to the record!
On top of that ridiculous beat, we have these thumping bass and subtle drum patterns that give a sort of skeleton to the track to attach to!
Another track I fucked with heavy was ‘War Torn’ because of its theatrical nature. This is what I imagine PTSD sounds like! You’ve got that forever looping vocal harmony that sounds somehow both lifeless and harmonious for a truly eerie sound!
On top of this, we have these haunting keys subtly going in the background and these chilling violin strings playing through it! As well as this random synth chords coming for a few seconds acting as a kind of pre-chorus sound!
It’s no doubt these two producers were the right men for the job to execute what can only be described as mammoth-size instrumentals for two of the best MC’s going right now!
This is a record you can’t afford to sleep on. Those who do can’t be for the culture! Simple as that!
https://open.spotify.com/album/6vnwZ5FSalfaTCkG7p6pF2?si=IIhCKYR5QrSJU-eQgUVLSg
The Serpent Tongue Reviews 