The Company We Keep - Gods And Monsters

Who, Feast, Mad Men, Catch Us, A Gentleman’s Bet, Team Grizzly II, HCMF, Heavyweights.

The Company We Keep is littered with Dela, Done One, Ruste Juxx,  Judgement, Joey Baggs, Blaze Rock, and Grey Fox.

After listening to this EP about 7 times in the last 2 days, I decided that the words I needed to formulate, scratch that….the words I needed weren’t going to come to me easily. Heavy hitters featured on almost every track this shit is the 602’s rawest underground talent throwing their 2 cents at your face.  An old friend once told me he worked in the belly of the beast; he must have been talking about Gods and Monsters.  Streets and The Ginger are the beast. 

I struggled, how I would describe these boys, these boys who have become men over the years. The only thing I can come up with, they are the modern day code talkers. Translating rhymes and words into something more than music with some beats behind it, these aren’t the old school pro-tools beats I messed with in school 15 years ago; these beats come from another planet. 

When I listen to G N M I have to pull out my Dangerdoom, Proof, Grimm, and Old School Eminem (circa 1997) I close my eyes and I’m drug through the hot sweaty nights of downtown Phoenix, destination 1145 E Roosevelt, crowds getting restless, hands shaking, hugs being tossed, Streets and The Ginger on the porch. The music starts. The crowd moves as one. We are the snakes they are the charmers. They are the puppet masters we are the puppets.

Nas, I suggest you get your daughters ready, Slaughterhouse 5 I suggest you make room for these Gods and Monsters. The mistress you thought was hip hop, well let’s just say she upped her game and like preachers at the podium you will feel the vibrations through your bones listening to these men.

I will be your judge, I will be your jury, I will not be your executioner. I will put these words on paper and let the crowd decide. I find you guilty of taking the souls of the lost who wander the streets slicing their throats from ear to ear and letting the beats flow like blood from their veins. Condemned to roam the earth hip hop whispering in your ear, your beats stalking the shadows.

The Company We Keep

The Second Coming

**I would like to thank Damien Streets, Brent William, Sarai Phi and all you other muggs for allowing me to be a part of your family. The Pics are from Sarai Phi from the 08/11/2012 FREEP party of The Company We Keep at Push Art Gallery in downtown Phoenix. 

The Second Coming - Gods and Monsters

Gods and Monsters

http://www.facebook.com/godsandmonstersaz

http://godsandmonstersaz.com/

The Second Coming

The Company You Keep

Damien Streets

Brent William

Who are they? Brent William + Damien Streets = Gods and Monsters. Just a couple of rappers who probably need psychiatric help, that and some money to pay bills and buy Jordans. 

This is not your old school new school hip hop. This isn’t your big brothers homemade mix tape. Flared with real world experience and dreams, a pumpkin spice coffee and avocado rolls, streets and “the ginger” roll through words and ideas, dreams and failures, heaven and hell. Never leaving you behind, tagging a picture of what ifs and could bes.

They don’t sound like House of Pain, and they aren’t a part of the Young Money Cash Money Millionaires. They are a part of the AZ underground hip hop scene, which seems to be getting bigger and bigger. Don’t look for DMX in this crowd, but rather young and old who can see the bigger picture, who want to be a part of this movement and are willing to march to a different beat.

Comparing them to other well-known groups is unjustifiable. But If I had to create a mash up I would say they have the stylings of slaughterhouse, some D12, and the powerful words of NaS. But to add a label to who they are would toss them into the pond of wannabe “rappers” and “Juggalos”.

Download their album, not because you’re a ‘hip hop’ follower, but because you want to support the AZ hip hop scene, you want to think outside the box, you don’t want to be a follower but a leader. Don’t be the sheep. Be the wolf.

Gods and Monsters……..lyrical serial killers. 

The Creepshow- They All Fall Down-2010

The Creepshow
Burlington, Ontario, Canada
Current 3 Albums:
Sell your soul (2006)
Run for your life (2008)
They all fall down (2010)

With
Sarah “Sin” Blackwood on vocals
Sean “Sickboy” McNabb on upright Bass/backup vocals
The Reverend McGinty on keys
Sandro Sanchioni on drums

 If you could mix Creepsville 666, a little Stitch Hopeless, maybe some Devil Doll with the voice of Joan Jett you would get The Creepshow. Sarah Blackwood is an amazing female vocalist and adds a certain artistic flair to this breed of psychobilly/punkabilly sound. It’s not often you run into women who can compete with the agro sounds of some of the hardest psychobilly out there, however when you hear Sarah’s voice you get thrown into the harmonic values her voice holds. Sarah took over lead vocals when her older sister Hellcat became pregnant. Giving new meaning to the term good girl gone bad, Sarah has also performed with “Walk off the Earth” a Canadian Indie band, whose eclectic use of instruments has given them a unique and identifiable sound. You can view any one of their amazing and talented songs on YouTube. The Creepshow has a set of unique lyrics, mirrored after horror films which are written by the band. So here’s the good the bad and the ugly of their latest album? The Good? They hold true to their psychobilly roots, with the amazing sounds of the upright bass, guitar and backup vocals. The Bad? While Sarah is musically amazing and extremely talented, her vocals don’t quite follow through causing you to strain to hear her over the rest of the bad, I would blame it on bad audio production (I’m partial to her vocals myself!) The Ugly? Well, the only ugly were the actors in the video from “They All Fall Down” With a great sound, a beautiful woman to sing you to sleep with dreams of horror and undead eyes you can’t go wrong with The Creepshow.