Doomtree – All Hands
Review by Annette Hansen
It’s been three years since the hip-hop super group Doomtree released their last collaborative full length No Kings. For a group of seven musicians, all with budding individual music careers, Doomtree knows how to pull it together and create a single record that is bursting with realism and artistic integrity.
On this album the band gives listeners a nice dose of poetic verses. The lyrics are aggressive and beautiful and are a refreshing listen in a world full of materialistic hip-hop. At times the lyrics can be a bit hard to follow, but regardless they beg the listener to want to know more.
All Hands takes a more raw approach and doesn’t suffer from over-productions; the vocalists’ voices sound real rather that crisp and very clearly auto-tuned. It’s nice to listen to an album that is genuine in both its lyrics and musical composition.
Where this album deters from some of its charm is in its lengthy repetitive nature. At a whopping 13 tracks and similar tone and styling to each track it’s hard to feel like it’s not just one big long song. It’s hard to find tracks that stand out and the result it’s a bit of an exhausting listen. The album feels like it needs to be shortened or offer more musical variety.
While All Hands certainly has its flaws, those missteps should not outweigh the art that this group has to offer. Doomtree is a collective of rappers and poets that know how to create music that makes listeners pay attention and think. That’s a quality in today’s overly simplified culture that should definitely not be overlooked.
Overall Rating: 3/5
Recommended Tracks: “80 on 80” and “Cabin Killer”
Website // Facebook // Twitter
