Freestylers - Adventures In Freestyle Album Review

Freestylers
Adventures In Freestyle
Album Review

The Freestylers are back with another new album. The Freestylers are underground champions of pounding, bass pumping breakbeat. There industrial sound captured the hearts of the street dwellers of breakdance and progressive heads that loved hip hop but also dance music lovers who loved electro. The Freestylers captured all of that and were pretty much unknown to the masses until 'Push Up' came out and was a mainstream hit. I thought this was a genius track as it kept loyal to their sound and was still commercially viable. It seems with 'Adventures In Freestyle' they've decided to move more in this direction creating songs rather than full on sound clashes.

This album is really mixed and has diversity. You could have a track like 'Could I Be Dreaming' that mixes Ian Dury style melody with hip hop lyrics and mixed electro break beats. Or 'Old School Fool' that is truly loyal to the sounds of hip hop breakdance culture. Then you've got 'Jump 'N' Twist' a kinda Prodigy style rave dub track. The version of 'Pockeful Of Sadness' is really sassy and interesting and 'Electrified' the single they realised shows expert MCing.

So what to make of this album? The main thing I can say is experimental. Not in the sense of the music as their previous stuff is more musically experimental it's the fact that their trying to create songs with the pulse of where they've come from. Whether the original Freestylers fan will like this is hard to say. As in their quest to create songs they've missed that full on power block rocking sound they've been known for. However the new listener could more easily get into this sound as it's not as underground and is more accessible. So I think this is a success in song writing however I miss that underground sound I like them for. However I think this is a ballsy move and could come up trumps in the next album from everything they've learnt in 'Adventures In Freestyle'.

Tareck Ghoneim