| CUSTOMER REVIEWS: | 5/5 - Beats
Z-trip's new album shifting gears has very rythmic beats that you could easily listen to and sway your head. The song everything changes featuring aceyalone and mystic is one of the best songs on the album. The soothing voice of Mystic and the dope flow of aceyalone and z-trip together. The turntablist style so unique it sounds alot like old school hip-hop like when people first began learning what you could do with a mixer a record player getting beats from you 8-track recorder. Comming up with funky beats and dope words to flow with it . Just a reminderthat there are stilol good musicians out there in our world that hypes up the worst albums. The song breakfast club with Murs is a funny yet fun song to listen to when bored becuase you could eaily relate to the lyrics.I hope whoever read this finds it helpful
4/5 - Dj Kicks
Sometimes the inspiration of an album outweighs its execution. Maybe that's a little the case here, but what the hell - this album is also damn fun.
<br />
<br />Stepping back: Z-Trip is obviously a fan - like, a major league old school hip-hop culture fan, and having gained enough notice with "Uneasy Listening" he's got to do a little bit of everything he loves, in the styles he loves, with the people he loves. It's totally infectious: the old school is large and in your face: huge party grooves ("Listen to the DJ"), silly stoner lyrics ("Breakfast Club"), tunes for breaking to ("Furious").
<br />
<br />But on top of the nostalgic, party atmosphere, there much more going on here. First and foremost: this album has vision, structure and ambition that hasn't been seen in hip-hop since, oh, I dunno, De La Soul? Whatever, but it moves from an old school reunion (take a bow, Sir Whipper Whip: your track is a stand-out moment) to inventive new stuff, folding in down-tempo DJ Shadow-style re-workings ("3rd Gear"), nu-metal ("Walking Dead") and even crusty old Chuck D yelling about George Bush.
<br />
<br />It's a pretty breath-taking span to attempt, and Z-Trip mostly pulls it off. Z-Trip also proves he has a pretty tidy sense of melody, creating a hip-hop ballad in "Everything Changes" with a lifting end section that really creates a mood beautifully.
<br />
<br />So: in short: beware. This isn't your average party record, your average rap album, your average anything. It's brave and fresh and it knows where it came from. Absolutely respectworthy.
3/5 - Bland, Unoriginal
Shifting Gears is the first mainstream label release of the Arizona based hip-hop artist Z-Trip. Z-Trip is renowned for his mash-up and turntable skills and he received worldwide recognition for his outstanding collaboration with DJ P on the CD Uneasy Listening, released in 2001 and limited to only 2000 copies.
The album contains a large amount of guest artists such as Public Enemies' Chuck D, Soup from Jurassic 5 and surprisingly Chester Bennington from the Nu-Metal band Linkin Park.
A lot of the tracks featuring the guest artists seem bland and unoriginal and make the album feel like it isn't Z-Trip's, just produced by him. The stand-out tracks on the album come when Z-Trip is on his own, these include About Face; where Z-Trip uses a sample of military drumming to produce some outstanding beats. And Revolution, a similar track but sees Z-Trip returning to his old mash-up ways resulting in a very laid back down-tempo track.
To me the album appears very confused, mixing a lot of genres together but resulting in a dull album with little character. Compared to Z-Trip's outstanding Uneasy Listenting this album is pale in comparison. |
|
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Last visit: 22/12/2009
