"Black Lebanon Volume 1" (Album, 2024)
Ventilate Records
The first long player from Walthamstow’s original
bad-boy hip-hop crew since 'International Rescue' (from
2000), and it's a game of two halves.
Opener DJ Specifik vs Gunshot is essentially a
cut-up of their previous material, and as such is mildly
diverting, but hardly vital, and sets the tone for the first
side of the LP. The rest of the side is old demos, some of
previously released material (Shanghai Badbwoy, Return
Of The Gunshot), and two unheard songs (9 Months,
Kane Rose Up) which are interesting, but dating from
their later period, when the fire had mostly ebbed away.
I'’s nice to hear Alkaline's vocal and Rix's backing on
these old tracks, but they are the sort of the thing that
would have been better put on the end of a full LP as bonus
tracks.
The second side is markedly better – all new tracks
featuring the current Gunshot line up – MC Mercury's raps
over Bulldog's beats and production. As befits the passage
of 30 odd years, it's not the breakneck Brit Core of the
early '90s, but more considered, mid-paced and inexorable,
similar (in terms of structures rather than instrumentation)
to John Carpenter's electronic soundtrack work of the late
'70s.
As you might expect, the lyrics are still dense, complex,
metaphor heavy infodumps, but rather than the incandescent
rage of classics like Mind of a Razor and Social
Psychotic, this is the sound of older, wiser man, with
the responsibilities and perspective that age brings,
standing battered but unbowed by the horrors of the world.
Although The Streets (and Gunshot's place in them)
still loom large, the subjects range further than the
parochial concerns of a lot of Hip-Hop.
Highlights: Pistol ("Sound of sirens, Overthrow
clowns and tyrants, but Pritti Patel keeps trying to drown
the migrants, Anti-Vax Jack wants to doubt the science")
and I, Mercury ("Culture Wars is pure pressure,
While those at the back are smiling with pure pleasure,
Tensions high, can't be measured, The slave-ship blood on
the floor can't be weathered").
Previous single Alkaline which I
had been slightly non-committal about previously, gets
better every time I listen to it.
The download version has four extra tracks, two of which are
new songs: Book of Love is INCREDIBLE, an angry
dialogue with a God that absents himself from the lives of
his creations, except to damn them for not worshiping Him
with sufficient fervour ("You're right – I should tread
more than lightly, Before you turn around and try to smite
me, But the unrelenting horrors of war, And amputations
under Sharia Law, Make me wonder what we're worshipping
for").
Ghetto Heartbeat, although it shares the name of the
single from 1997, is a completely new version with new
lyrics ("These County Lines are like child abuse, While
the real criminals are just ruling the roost"), and is
a considerable improvement.
The other tracks are remixes of Hail To The King and
Ghetto Heartbeat, both of which are better than
anything on the first side of the LP.
Essentially, the extra tracks on the download version would
have been better as the first side of the LP and vice versa,
but with tracks as strong as ‘I, Mercury’, it hardly
matters.
If you're a long-time Gunshot fan, this is definitely for
you, and if you're new to the fold, it's a good jumping in
point.
6/10 for the vinyl, 8/10 for the download
Nick Hydra (November 2024)
Buy it here: https://gunshot1.bandcamp.com/album/black-lebanon-album-volume-1
Ventilate Records
Released as a tribute to the recently deceased MC
Alkaline, musically, this is really good. It’s not much like
their mid '90s Britcore pomp, which is no surprise as
original DJ White Child Rix is no longer involved, but Curoc
(Q-Roc to you) and Barry Blue are back on board to lend
their not inconsiderable talents to bolster MC Mercury,
which should have made it fantastic, as the two most recent
Gunshot releases (Sulpher, Burn Cycle*) were
seriously impressive, but sadly, this is slightly
disappointing lyrically.
It's by no means bad, but songs about dead friends
can easily be sentimental (not always a bad thing), and
while this doesn't even get close to mawkishness (It's not Candle
in the Wind after all) the subject matter doesn't play
to Gunshot's strengths. Ironically, it really needs Alkaline
to run a verse at his phenomenal, breakneck speed to make it
great, but sadly, that can't happen now.
That said, any song with a line as East London as "A
bigger man than you'll ever be, you wankers" in it can
only ever be on the right side of excellent.
*Both angry, doom-laden diatribes that require your urgent
attention. 6/10
Nick Hydra (July 2024)
Buy it here: https://gunshot1.bandcamp.com/album/alkaline
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