(Brighton Boulevard/Inertia)

A nine piece collective out of Sydney, Kid Confucius look to combine hip hop, soul and funk together on their debut album. After numerous gigs supporting some big names their debut offering comes with a lot of hype, some good and bad points. When you are largely an outfit that thrives on a very organic live sound it is always going to be hard to translate this to a recording, unfortunately for me this self titled debut doesn’t make the transition that well.

Firstly to the good points, the biggest of which are the beats and first class instrumentation. Harking back to a mid 70s funk era, the live instrumentation and band type sounds through all tracks here are clearly the standout. The smart use of simple drum patterns complimented by layered live strings and keys make the musical backing for the MC and vocalist first class. The only slip up, beat wise, is when they look to strip the beat back to a simple drum pattern later in the album, taking away the elements of sound that stands them out from the crowd. The best sounding tracks here would be the P-Funk vibe of Mister or Modulate, and the straight up funky sounds of first single Words. The other strong point for me is the performance of vocalist Rob Hezkial, he clearly is talented. The opener Mister effectively displays his talen, however at times his limited range of lyrics and, the for want of a better term, “pop” type sounds, sometimes leave him sounding like Guy Sebastian with better beats.

Now to the low points, and unfortunately for me one of these is MC Pre Fab. He is a talented MC with a good flow, smart ability to ride the beat and adapt to a track, but for the most part his lyrics aren’t up to scratch. There is no better example than the chorus of first single words, “we build it like Leggo/ with more flavours than a Freddo/ phatter than a sumo/ lyric killer like Q Tarantino”. It takes what was a good beat to the level of a corny gimmick. Sadly this isn’t the only weak point, as a lot of the metaphors and punchlines of the rhymes just aren’t up to scratch in a scene that features established acts like Art of War, Hilltop Hoods and rising talents like Layla and Suburban Intellect.

I actually debated wether to gloss over the inadequacies of the lyrics on this album because Pre Fab does have a nice delivery. I think this release is not quite commercial enough to chart and definitely not solid enough to garner fans in the finicky scene that is Oz hip hop. Rather than write this off as a below average release, I will say that if you are a fan of chart hip hop it is worth a listen. I will look out for future releases and hope that hey sharpen their skills to achieve the success that their talent warrants.