Generally speaking I'm a poor reviewer of things but here we go.
Way back in January I saw a few of my favorite rappers at the Lo-Fi in Seattle. One of them, Tribe One, mentioned during his set that he had a new Album coming out soon, Malibu Shark Attack. Well the album is here and it hasn't left the CD player of my car all week.
Malibu Shark attack is actually a group comprised of Dublin based producer Rocky O'Reilly and the aforementioned nerdcore super bad-ass Tribe One. On the opening track Tribe One describes O'Reilly's sound as post electronica indiecore-syth pop so let's go with that. It's certainly nothing like you hear on the radio today but the beats are still pretty accessible. No one's going to confuse this album with the latest J Cole album but I wouldn't say it's so far away from traditional hip-hop that it needs a special category. Of course your mileage may vary. If Macklemore was raised by Wu-Tang then I was raised by MF Doom and non-traditional beats are kinda my jam. My definition of hip hop might be broader than most.
This is why I don't review things, I'm so far away from the point.
The first couple tracks on the Album, Better off as Friends and Yo Into New York are upbeat tracks that are going to get your head nodding. Tribe One always delivers clever lyrics and these songs a no exception. Yo Into New York has a verse on it by Jesse Dangerously that's so rad it had me scrambling to look up more of his stuff. The third track, Doing it Wrong, hit me right in the feels when I first heard it. On it Tribe One gets pretty personal about his motivations behind quitting his day job to make raps. Right now I'm kind of struggling with my day job and I'm not spending enough time drawing so everything he says about the desire to make art and the feeling on wasting your life in a traditional 9-5 rang true. But enough about me, the song is super dope. It's smart, honest and heartfelt. It's everything music should be but rarely is.
The next few songs on the album have appearances from MC Lars and Adam WarRock. I'm 99.9% sure the song BDMTHRFCKR is all about Jules from Pulp Fiction's wallet. It didn't hit me in the feels like Doing it Wrong did but it's a killer track. Rocky O'Reilly really throws the kitchen sink at it. It's the most uptempo song on the album and has a chorus you really want to sing along with (swearing's fun kids!).
Dizzy Dustin from Ugly Duckling shows up on Plans for the Weekend which was an unexpected surprise. I still can't believe UD never made the leap to mainstream. The Album starts to close out with a self titled song that has one of my favorite opening verses ever. The last song Monsters Under Your Bed has pretty much the only chorus on the album that I don't really like but the verses are so solid that I let it slide on this one track. But just this one track, ok?
So there you go, Malibu Shark Attack. 10 stars. You should buy it here. Or don't buy it, take Tribe One's own advice: "save your money until you're sure I deserve it, until then download, torrent and burn it". Or at the very very least you should check out the video for Better Off as Friends below
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