Horrorshow
The Grey Space
Elefant Traks/ Inertia


Horrorshow are a young duo, comprised of DJ Adit and MC Solo, and they've released what is probably one of the most distinctive Aussie hip-hop records to drop in the last few years. The album's full of dreamy, washed-out beatscapes over which Solo raps introspectively, emotionally - pretty much the antithesis of the raw funk and aggression of what dominates Aussie hip-hop. Horrorshow certainly fit in with the Elefant Traks crew, sound-wise, but they also do a lot of things differently which gives them a tidy niche.

The first tracks on the album introduce us to the pair before dropping the heavier stuff later on. It's all self-deprecating wit, storytelling, and skillful, subtle imagery from Solo, while Adit proves he's got a great ear for chopping vocal samples, and he uses this to great effect on Uplift and Waiting For the 5.04. Solo's mastered a lazy, almost slurring style which would sound effortless if there wasn't so much emotion caught up in his vocals.

Horrorshow complement each other well, as on the shuffling, smoky blues piano and harmonica groove of Days Past where Solo relates a night of "drunken fun turning into a love story". Choose None seems to be constantly building, with an ascending, 808-inspired synth beat and Solo and guest MC Just Enuf swapping fast rhymes like an underground version of a commercial rap track, yet is somehow catchier.

Dire Straits Pt.1 is probably a bit too much like spoken-word and dramatic to really mesh with the rest of the album and Solo apologises at the end of the track, so make of it what you will. There are some great hooks on here as well, such as the strutting, warbling The Party Life, featuring Nick Lupi, and All Summer Long, with an overdubbed, sung chorus which bubbles and melts with a really lovely reversed-guitar sample.

Ben Ford Smith