Polski
English
I can safely say that I really like hip-hop, especially when it doesn't look like hip-hop at all. And this is also why the debut album by The Affect is one of my strongest candidates to the title of the best album of the beginning of the year.
The Affect to the off music is like Sleaford Mods to punk (and they're about to release new album as well!). But instead of anti-establishment chanting, we've got high class poetry and instead of a guy in a track suit playing beats on laptop - there are well-planned post-rock compositions in the background. Sounds good? It's even better!
The band is all in for spoken lyrics, only the first track includes a sung chorus and... it's very good they gave it up after this. James Hope's voice is mesmerizing and true, especially when it goes into the whispering mode. We feel that we can trust him in everything he talks about. And although the ir music has hip-hop among its ancestors, it is both true and... nice to us. "My microphone is my weapon but please, don't take offence". Hope's poetry deals with love ("Your aura moves around my soul"), being a man ("I can't tell you that I'm fragile/because you're look at me for strength/I can't tell you that I'm frightened/because you need me to be brave/Now I can't change my emotions/like the channels on the TV") and... anti-establishment ("The governments say they'll help you/that's far from the truth/they'll always be the first ones/to criticize the youth") - so perhaps they're closer to Sleaford Mods than it seems.
And there are also backgrounds that, unlike in hip-hop, are equally important parts of the tracks. Without the vocal they would be great, very much rhythmical post-rock songs played on clear-cut guitars, keys and quite a lot of electronics. But it was created for other purposes, and it serves them very well - matching both the atmosphere and rhythm of the spoken lyrics (even when it grinds in your teeth ("Infrared") it does it well).
"Conscious" costs 5 GBP.
Brak komentarzy:
Prześlij komentarz