Reviews The Shaw Shanks - Wordplay

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The Shaw Shanks, from Vakseen Productions, have been putting it down for a minute. MC's Jaxx & I.V. make up the duo from Jacksonville, Florida, and their producer is IllMuzik's own Vakseen. With nothing but raw talent and the drive to elevate in this industry, we took the time to check out their latest offering, "Wordplay".

This is an album compiled of really raw and rugged beats and hard old school underground rap. The beats are really straight forward and hard, almost pounding my eardrums off. The rap is really nice with a real old school vibe brought forward by nice style and flow. The use of many takes layered on top of each other and many voices filling in also enhance this old school feeling . Even the old school cut "Aayeah" is brought into the intro of track6 "Off Glass!" just to prove my point. It makes me laugh a bit and I see it as a nice flirt/joke to the listener.

The beats are mostly straight forward and pounding but in no way simplistic. They hold nice little bits and pieces, breaks and subtelties. I defenetly feel a red thread through the whole album stylewise and composition-wise.

Certain tracks stand out of the crowd, like track 11 "What A Crock (Feat. Art)". It houses really nice singig by Art and a little more laidback style. And track 15 "Inspirational Rations (Feat. Claud Myers & Melodeas)" is really soulfull with nice singing by Claud over a nice mellow and soft beat. This is more my cup of tea personally and makes by head bob back and forth something wild.

In the genre of hard hitting beats and raw rugged old school vibes, this is really good and it all works. The compositions are nice and the productions solid. The soundscape is dark and full like a big rug mat laying over all 16 tracks. I give this a solid 3.5 out of 5. And if you're into the more raw and rugged sound you defenetly should check this out. But I also get the distinct feeling that this is not for all. If this isn't the prefered style this could perhaps get a bit hard to swallow. This is in no way an "easy listening" experience.