Search - Atmosphere :: Overcast

The Almighty Overcast..

C. Thomas | HOUSTON, TX | 11/09/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"....First let me get this out of the way. As an aspiring MC/Producer, Atmosphere has been the one of the most influential hip hop groups to me since The Pharcyde. Contrary to what anyone thinks or says, Atmosphere has, in my view, valiantly withstood the test of time where soooo many other original underground hip hop acts have fell. I have to say the deepest respect I have for them comes from the fact that they've defied all what makes a rapper 'hot' and were still very successful especially by underground standards. Every single up and coming emcee trying to do his/her own original thing always has all kinds people trying to tell them what's hot, what will work, and what won't work. But screw them, who are they and what the hell do they know?!?! And it's that type of mentality that led Rhymesayers Ent. & Atmosphere to become a force to be recon with in the indie world till this day.

ANT, the producer in Atmosphere, incorporates the addictive hard "New Jack Swing" drums with melodic vintage sampling-style beats (Reminicent of DJ Premiere, Erick Sermon, Easy Mo Bee, & old school RZA, etc.) that made me fall in love with hip hop in the first place. And Slug is quite possibly (but extremely arguably) a "perfect" emcee, having the deep, intuitive, imaginative, dexterous lyrical complexity but still equally maintaining a confident combative persona to remind you why he's one of the best in the entire hip hop scene, and I say that very un-biased (having Nas, Del The funky Homosapien, UGK, & Devin The Dude in the same CD changer with Atmosphere).

Now, for the review.

This debut album is great on so many levels. Mainly because of the seemless change in mood within the tracks, from rebellious, to combative, to informative, to humorous, to sacastic, but keeping an eerie traditional underground sound.

I don't know what 1597 stands for , but it's a sick introduction. From then on, Slug and Spawn send you on a very detailed lyrical journey into their minds from complicated women to drug abuse to people who don't listen to lyrics to just plain showing off (Multiples Reprise). On "Brief Description" (track 2) Slug pretty much gets absolutely every point he needs to get across as an emcee, which was a genius idea makin it the second track. Overcast was designed to shut down whack rappers on every level after a thorough analyzing, everything that was needed to be said was said here and think that's why slug somewhat abandoned this style and moved on to talking about life, girls, and having issues for the albums following this one.

While now days the sound of Overcast is very vintage, this is still easily a classic debut album. I think Atmosphere would've still been labeled a legendary hip hop collective even if Overcast was the only album they ever dropped.

Believe me hip hop heads, if you haven't heard this album yet, it will stay in your CD player for many days. Overcast! Definitely goes about no. 3 in my ultra vast list of great debut albums, and I mean for all genres. Buy it.



- Chris BlaQ

"