Ill Advised Verdikt Release Type: Album Reviewer: piper

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A badass, muscular man-rat with judge’s wig and gavel leers out of a dumpster in a dark, grime-encrusted alley on the cover of local emcee Verdikt’s debut long-player. If this record sounds as fierce as that judicial rodent looks, we’re in for some pretty savage beats. The CD is placed in the player with the intention of finding out.

The ‘Intro’ track seeps out with great promise; a RZA-esque movie soundtrack texture and crackling vocal sample dropping into a dark, slinky groove with chants of the rapper and album’s respective monikers. The atmosphere is a red herring – ‘Paint’ arrives with a cheesy midi-brass line and casio piano tinkle – though the song remains a formidable and incisive homage to Australian graffiti culture. ‘Holiday,’ sadly, threatens to drain all hope I had of enjoying the album, mining every Aussie hip-hop cliché including such lyrical themes as going to the beach, drinking beer, playing backyard cricket and observing ‘dardy girls.’
Thank god the track’s banality is quickly offset by ‘Landscape,’ a surprisingly shrewd and eloquent tirade on indigenous hardship spun over gloomy synth and thick, brooding bass. ‘City means’ is the album’s leading track and clearly intended as both a self-promotional single and a tribute to Perth; neither is especially convincing when the song’s fundament is a lame-ass Elton-John-type piano loop.

The remainder of the album tends towards these patterns, modulating between earnest social and political comment and trite Aus-cheese, between naff backing tracks and flashes of instrumental inspiration. Eleventh track ‘Wank Factor’ is totally relatable, acutely distilling the ego-tripping tosspot character we’re all too well acquainted with, and the title track which tails it is tastefully minimal, stark layers of eerie vibraphone and strings. The record eventually wraps up with ‘Play School’ – yes, it samples the show’s theme song (in the liner notes, Verdikt implores the ABC not to sue him) – a reminiscence of the rapper’s childhood, cute in theory, but kind of embarrassing in practice.

At 19 tracks – almost all of which exceed the three minute mark – Ill Advised is frankly too long. It clocks in at an hour an 15 minutes altogether, and it’s a shame that the moments where Verdikt really shines as both an emcee and a producter/instrumentalist are largely buried amidst the abundance of half-baked beats and humdrum endrhyme rants about beer and bitches. With a simple discerning trim, this record could be improved tenfold.

Even then, Ill Advised would remain an album which depending on your predilection, epitomizes either what is great, refreshing, accessible and earnest about Aussie hip hop, or the things which make it cringeworthy, clichéd and crass. If you’re an aficionado of the genre, Verdikt’s inaugural release would surely deserve a place in your collection. But it certainly won’t make converts of those with a natural aversion to antipodean rap; if thus far it hasn’t been your cuppa, then buying this album would be… well hey, the name says it all, doesn’t it?