If I were an artist and had to compete with an album that features two of the hottest names in the culture coming together, I’d call that PLENTY PRESSURE TOO! A historical fusion made three years ago and is still felt to this day, and with Bars Over BS recently picking it up for the physicals, you know I had to peep and give it a long-overdue write-up, so let’s get into it!
This is the 2023 drop by the collaboration of MC Powerhouse Chubs and Producer Machacha, with features from
-Mickey Diamond
-Snotty
-O The Great
-Bloo Azul
An absolutely savage list of names that have the capacity to run any of your favourite names into the ground solo, so together? That’s overkill at its highest level.
When we take a look at the production, we see Machacha on his abrupt, fixated, and aggressive take. A man who has been described as the ‘King Maker’ for having the uncanny ability of working with future legends, he’s done just that with Chubs and done so with the utmost ruthlessness and cutthroat instrumentals that you can feel in the back of your soul.
On this one, he ain’t worried about sounding fancy, being overly experimental, diving into his many bags of sonic tricks, nah, he’s on his brutal, minimalistic, and heavy shit that is perfectly suited for someone like Chubs to go off on!
You have tracks like -Liquid Death, which sounds like real-life ‘Chinese Water Torture’. You’ve got that looped distorted chord progression that gives off an eerie feeling as it haunts the whole track!
It’s combined with some thudding drums and some thick bass and what sounds like a super subtle yet sharp key that appears for half a second each time in about 10-second increments!
Or we can talk about tracks like -Can We, which again is a minimal masterclass at its finest. You’ve got those angelic chord progressions that make the track feel as light as a feather! Which is continued by some methodically paced drums and a beautiful vocal harmony that has a classical melody to it, which glides over the instrumentation!
Hell, we have the track – Shots From The Jaguar, which has this 80’s movie villain soundtrack vibes! With those deep-toned synth chord influences, brash drums, and some irregular sounds and snippets that come throughout the song, giving it a bit of controlled chaos to keep the song feeling unpredictable in nature!
This is Mach at his most powerful and focused. Don’t get it twisted, he can utilise any sound on any given day. But on this occasion, he’s getting cosy with the ‘Boom Bap’ lane and putting his own spin on the iconic sound!
Speaking of ‘Iconic sound’, we have Chubs. A man I first discovered early last year with his ‘40 Cal Capone’ tape, and I haven’t looked back since. He has a one-of-a-kind flow, killer charisma, and a presence across the beat that I’d say puts him in the top 5 as far as substance on any given song goes. He’s never one to just ‘rap’ but instead create a whole experience that lives on rent-free in the minds of fans across the culture!
On this album, he doesn’t disappoint. The first thing I loved was how fast he got into his work. The intro track was barely a second in before he was already spitting! He was eager to get started, and he didn’t stop till the end! I loved how he incorporated a variety of mesmerising chorus lines, ‘most notable on the song Liquid Death’ but shown throughout!
All those aspects help push his verbal narrative when the spitting starts. I’ve said this since I first heard him that he has the same level and skill in flow as legends such as
-Method Man
-Notorious B.I.G.
-Redman
You name it, he can rock with the best of them in that department. He’s never one to skip a beat; his words are magnets, they immediately stick to the instrumental and grip tight until the tracks are done, word for word, bar for bar, he’s never missed once.
I can’t believe how fucking fluent he is! Smooth, precise, vivid imagery in such short bursts. In just two lines he can make you picture a whole situation and then some! He actually has an incredible smart pen game also. Because if you really listen to his verses he’s choosing a collection of words per bar that shows syncing rhythm with the 4-5 that comes before and after! Making sure he sets up a bunch of words that end with ‘ass’ or ‘Ill’ or ‘Ight’ then finding words that sound similar to those that don’t end that way, it’s a whole fucking science that he’s mastered to a tee!
We have to bring up the fact he’s keeping up with arguably the most stand out rappers in the game right now and holding his own! Each feature track doesn’t just have a superstar name but they pull their weight and drop some of the dopest verses I’ve heard from them to elevate the album as a whole! (As if this album needed any more reason to be elevated!)
You’d have to be a brain dead retard to assume this duo would fail. An absolutely unreal album that I’m kicking myself for not finding sooner! Shoutout to all the killer features for their contributions!
https://open.spotify.com/album/2OaOFMyAEwMAwtzQ6KarOt?si=_ZrmCBLSQEu2hO-HUWDPgQ
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