Album Review by EDF
Which is more important these days, the music or the publicity? So Solid Crew burst onto the scene with a Crew of such large numbers they actually dwarf the likes of Funkadelic, Kool and the Gang and even the James Brown Band. All well and good but the overheads must be killer. Rapping about the wrong side of the law doesn’t help either as wherever the Crew have made live appearances, trouble as followed them as well.
‘Haters’ starts the album off with their theory as to why people might like not like what the Crew are trying to do. Well, this might initially win the sympathy vote, unfortunately the rest of the album doesn’t fair well. While you have the likes of Eminem who cannot only rap at such a furious speed, he also makes his rap interesting and funny. The Crew’s Garage style is not that impressive as tracks such as ‘Envy’ sound like a conversation about every day life and could possibly have been made up before they got into the studios. The lack of production and having just a relentless programmed drum track and a sparse bass line is not enough. All well and good if you just want to do a gig anywhere but for a whole album a little bit more is needed as The Artful Dodger proved with their releases.
The other point to make is that even with a lot of people involved in the group, they can sound very annoying and monotonous after a while, that is if you can get pass all the swear words.
If you manage to listen to the album from start to finish, reward yourself some points. Although your parents might not appreciate this as a present.
