producers: a.n.t.

A while ago I reviewed the rookie effort of the Species crew (click here to read it). And I haven't been able to find too many good words for the record. But to show us that those cats have progress, they return with a second offering, that intends to prove to us the artistic maturity they want to have reached by now. But basically, once more the question simply is: can these dudes to it, is the music banging, or does it suck?

The name of the game is "Saltation", and it opens with a "De La Soul Is Dead" reenactment ("yo, I just got this De La record" - "oh, they suck", you know...), that's working well, but once more the focus on dissing themselves is not needed. Unless you make it a track, like they do on "Haters". And the Species play the roles themselves and throw the shit in their own direction, so to say. And this works really nice, and we like the idea as well as the result. This is followed up by "Saltation", that features a cool beat. The oddities are now grown and are on the brick to be completely fine tuned. So the opera voice doesn't alienate, the drum mingles with the strings and the kids behind the mics found the rhythm for their flows. Producer Anthony Gamma (A.N.T.) is matching the cool sounds with a slightly too hard drum, having the dopeness get lost on "esNova". This attacks the braggadocios, as does "Shut Up", that however combines it with intended to impress scientifical madness. The beat is simple, but only the more effective, with a cool piano, cool rustling and an okay drum. Insanity picks up the momentum, with psychopathic rhymes being put over a crazily blinking beat, found on "Devastation". The subject has been done before and there are rappers that are specialists for such topics, what makes it hard for the Species to catch our attention with their version.

"Out Of Control" builds slowly and remains bare, again to its success, without the simplicity being brilliant though. However, the way this unfolds and the words that are chosen to be put over the cut, prove the carefulness and thoughts behind it. "DJ Ra-Vee Interlude" is a drum with someone talking, to little explanation and reason, as well as acclaim. We'd actually rather check out the total different flavor of "Rebellion", where A.N.T. gets a synthy insanity going, that would make a Swiss Beat proud, and actually still is quite banging. The lyrics are a little too hidden within the quality noise, and so Johnny's words are lost in the transmission. On "Comphezion", the claim of being the best is stated and repeated. And we still don't believe it, but rather we continue to "Ostracized", that is once more build over a dope A.N.T. production, that's only somewhat missing out on the drum, but apart from that is getting props.

A phone excerpt opens "Evil", that then materializes as a story telling / farewell track, leaving little for us to complain about, with another cool beat and a good execution of the concept. And the strange singing is cool too. "Scream" on the other hand is of fast forward material, of first album proportions. Next. And that next happens to be "Secret Admirer". An eerie beat and irritating rhymes are making this one of the best tracks on here. The content is irritating, as it talks about the insanity's that a stalker would commit. The Species pull off the concept so well, it's almost scary, but a topic like this wouldn't deserve anything else.

On our imaginary way to Acapulco, we grabbed the horns that can be heard in the back of "Ravage". They are quickly exchanged for a sonic grumbling though. It's musical and once more only suffering from a standard drum, and maybe lacking one or two change ups and add on's. Lyrically this is doing that violent stuff, we had to query about before, again. The "Hungry Skit" tries to be humorous, we hope, but is no Chris Rock. The orchestration of "Nitemare" is once more cool, and the drum is, well.... This again does grim reaper rhymes, and they are just not to like. So finally we check out the nifty production of "Digital Symphony", that builds well, and is a rough blueprint of something that will sound ill, once elaborated.

And maybe that's what's to conclude here. This is beat wise miles better than the debut. It can still be further fine tuned though, but it shows more of the promised skills, that had to be searched for on the first release. It creates something that is already more often nice than missing the board by lengths. On the lyrical tip, the flows seem to be furthered too, and with the confidence that comes through time and practice, they sound much better as well. Content wise some of the concepts are very clever, the punchlines find their target more often too, while that violent lunatic crap is still enormously annoying. However, if these Species progress like they did from the first release to this one right here, we surely can expect some treats coming from them in the future.