★★★★✩
by Tony Diamonds
Diabolic is a New York-based rapper who initially burst onto the NY battle scene in the late 90's and has released a couple of albums and mixtapes since then. On his latest album "Fightin' Words", Diabolic is able to pull in some well-known hip hop personalities. So how does Diabolic's new record fare? Check out this Diabolic Fightin' Words review to find out!
BEATS: ★★★★✩
Heavy boom-bap aesthetic throughout. Expect grimy lofi drums, and dark, often atonal sampled beats. Highlights include a murky DJ Premier beat on the lead off track 'Diabolical Sound', the funky bass and horns in "Higher", a Wu-Tangish sound with 'My Attitude', the serious pianos on 'Victim's Story', some epic vocal samples on 'Game Time', and the super grimy drums on 'Alien Manuscript'.
Some of the beats don't really go anywhere though. The 'Feel Ya Pain' beat seems a tad empty sounding to me, but it might just be how it's EQ'd. 'Norman Bates' features a manic string loop that seems a little too broken down for me and also seems a tad aimless. The title track for me misses the mark; it could almost have been funky but the snare with the loud sample behind it is too distracting to really make for a compelling instrumental. Similarly,'Bad Dream' is a tad too non-harmonic to really be enjoyable for the entire 3+ minutes that it lasts.
LYRICS: ★★★★✩
Diabolic's voice, accent and vocal inflections remind me a good deal of Ill Bill from Non-Phixion. He has plenty of multisyllabic rhymes and punchlines to appease any hardcore NY hip hop fan. We get a great feature verse from RA The Rugged Man on 'Suffolk's Most Wanted'! Other standout guest verses on this release come via Celph Titled and Locksmith among others.
CONTENT: ★★★✩✩
Diabolic kicks pretty standard underground hip hop type topics on a majority of the tracks, with a couple raps based loosely on a coherent topic thrown in the mix such as on 'Victim's Story' and 'A.M.E.R.I.C.A.'. But don't get it twisted, for the most part, you're not getting anything different here than what you would get in an Ill Bill or Vinnie Paz album content-wise. That doesn't mean that it's not enjoyable to hear Diabolic spit his bars, he's a great MC - it just means that if you are looking for something mind-blowingly innovative, you aren't going to find it here.
OVERALL: ★★★★✩
If you're a fan of Non-Phixion and RA the Rugged Man, you'll probably like 'Fightin Words'. His flow, beat choices and content definitely take me back to the late 90's and early 00's when tons of underground boom-bap was being released and that rugged, grimy, NY-style 'fuck the world' motif was readily apparent with each artist. I recommend this album to anyone that wants some straight-up, no-frills hardcore dirty boom-bap to mean mug out the car window to.
Thus concludes this Diabolic Fightin' Words review. You can peep the album yourself on Soundcloud here: Diabolic "Fightin' Words". Also be sure to check out some of my other hip hop reviews here: Hip Hop Reviews
by Tony Diamonds
Diabolic is a New York-based rapper who initially burst onto the NY battle scene in the late 90's and has released a couple of albums and mixtapes since then. On his latest album "Fightin' Words", Diabolic is able to pull in some well-known hip hop personalities. So how does Diabolic's new record fare? Check out this Diabolic Fightin' Words review to find out!
BEATS: ★★★★✩
Heavy boom-bap aesthetic throughout. Expect grimy lofi drums, and dark, often atonal sampled beats. Highlights include a murky DJ Premier beat on the lead off track 'Diabolical Sound', the funky bass and horns in "Higher", a Wu-Tangish sound with 'My Attitude', the serious pianos on 'Victim's Story', some epic vocal samples on 'Game Time', and the super grimy drums on 'Alien Manuscript'.
Some of the beats don't really go anywhere though. The 'Feel Ya Pain' beat seems a tad empty sounding to me, but it might just be how it's EQ'd. 'Norman Bates' features a manic string loop that seems a little too broken down for me and also seems a tad aimless. The title track for me misses the mark; it could almost have been funky but the snare with the loud sample behind it is too distracting to really make for a compelling instrumental. Similarly,'Bad Dream' is a tad too non-harmonic to really be enjoyable for the entire 3+ minutes that it lasts.
LYRICS: ★★★★✩
Diabolic's voice, accent and vocal inflections remind me a good deal of Ill Bill from Non-Phixion. He has plenty of multisyllabic rhymes and punchlines to appease any hardcore NY hip hop fan. We get a great feature verse from RA The Rugged Man on 'Suffolk's Most Wanted'! Other standout guest verses on this release come via Celph Titled and Locksmith among others.
CONTENT: ★★★✩✩
Diabolic kicks pretty standard underground hip hop type topics on a majority of the tracks, with a couple raps based loosely on a coherent topic thrown in the mix such as on 'Victim's Story' and 'A.M.E.R.I.C.A.'. But don't get it twisted, for the most part, you're not getting anything different here than what you would get in an Ill Bill or Vinnie Paz album content-wise. That doesn't mean that it's not enjoyable to hear Diabolic spit his bars, he's a great MC - it just means that if you are looking for something mind-blowingly innovative, you aren't going to find it here.
OVERALL: ★★★★✩
If you're a fan of Non-Phixion and RA the Rugged Man, you'll probably like 'Fightin Words'. His flow, beat choices and content definitely take me back to the late 90's and early 00's when tons of underground boom-bap was being released and that rugged, grimy, NY-style 'fuck the world' motif was readily apparent with each artist. I recommend this album to anyone that wants some straight-up, no-frills hardcore dirty boom-bap to mean mug out the car window to.
Thus concludes this Diabolic Fightin' Words review. You can peep the album yourself on Soundcloud here: Diabolic "Fightin' Words". Also be sure to check out some of my other hip hop reviews here: Hip Hop Reviews
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