Vents - Hard to Kill (Album)
Ten years ago, if I had stood up on my soapbox and said "Australian hip hop is tops", people would have pelted me with lemon wedges. These days, whilst people might still pelt me with lemon wedges, it’s much more likely to be because I’m dropping off ‘Jesus wasn’t a Jew....he’s from Salt Lake City’ pamphlets or simply because I look a bit like a compost bin.
From Obese Records, home to the juggernaut that is the ‘Hilltop Hoods’, comes Vents with his debut album Hard to Kill, and this swanky release has all the swagger and confidence of someone already well into their established career, rather than a debut album. All of you ‘Hoods’ tragics out there may recognise his distinctive vocals from his guest spot on the Hood’s’ ‘Blue Blooded’ (The Hard Road-2006), but this isn’t a case of someone crap riding on the coat tails of someone more talented, like Meg White, for example.
No, those worried that Vents may have as much talent as the bass player from Silverchair, fear not, Vents has talent in spades and with production help from Trials (Funkoars) has fashioned out a very slick release indeed. Put simply, for a ‘debut’ album, this is ridiculously good.
With his ‘aggressive’ vocal style, Vents successfully spits his way through 14 (and a remix) tracks containing intelligent, socially aware lyrics that are both defiant and a tad reflective. You want horn sounds? Good. Funky guitar? Ok. All the sounds on this release are so very watertight. Guest vocalists, and they all sound pretty good, include Robby Balboa, on the standout track ‘Flatline’, Suffa from the ‘Hoods’ and Sesta, of Funkoars fame. Other standout tracks on this album include ‘F*ck Em Up’ (it’s better than it sounds), ‘Hard to Kill’, ‘Virus’….the list goes on. There are a couple of tracks that aren’t stunning (I’m looking at you track 7…) but let’s sketch down a 95% hit to miss ratio, shall we? Which makes ‘Vents’ about as effective as the pill, and that’s pretty sharp. So if you want good hip hop with flawless production standards and smart lyrics than you could do a lot worse than this. All that’s left to add is that this is only ‘Vent’s’ debut album…meaning that his 4th album will most probably be the greatest album of all time. All the haters can shove their lemon wedges fair up their arse.
