Killa Instinct - Dead Breed

Being an avid album collector and rarely buying 12”s, the one thing that always bugged me about the “golden era” UK hip hop that I cherished so much was the lack of albums. Hardnoise, Kobalt60, Kinetic Effect, Def J and so many more taunted me with nothing more than compilation appearances, 12s or EPs and they never released albums. Killa Instinct were another such group that had me wanting MORE with only a few EPs and 12s to their name and never an album in sight. To make matters worse they actually stated on two of their EP’s words to the effect of “tracks taken from the upcoming LP All Hell Breaks Loose” which never seemed to see the light of day and was just adding to my frustration of wishing for a Killa Instinct full LP ! Well finally it happened in 2002 and my dreams came true with the release of their “Dead Breed” album on Halo’s (of Criminal Minds fame) UK Rap Records (admittedly I only heard it in the last couple years and in mp3 format but it’s one piece of vinyl yet to be crossed off my wantlist).

Geta from the group actually mentioned to me in the Heroes forum that basically “Dead Breed” is “All Hell Breaks Loose”, albeit delayed by 6 years, and it does have that 90’s classic Killa Instinct sound all over it (thankfully). This is very evident on tracks like “Raging”, “I Don’t Want to Die” and “Leg It” which all have the trademarks of classic Killa Instinct and in fact trademarks of classic hardcore UK hip hop in the so called “britcore” style. Ballistically fast rhymes from the super incredible MC Bandog backed with noisy, busy beats and horror movie samples all form what is known as CLASSIC MATERIAL and are the type of songs that hardcore UK hip hop fans live for. “Raging” contains as it’s chorus the almost poetic line “I’m raging but that don’t mean I’m losing my mind”, well said Bandog.

Interestingly one of my favourite tracks here does stray away from the typical Killa Instinct rapid style ie. “The Messenger”. A much slower track than you’d normally expect from Killa, this one clocks in at what is best described as a headnodding pace. Bandog sounds equally as dope on the mic here as he does on the fast tracks and there’s a cool sounding “dryness” to his voice which is really evident here. Musically there’s funk pianos and a crazy yet wicked sounding whistle effect throughout and the chorus has effects that sounds like they would be at home “Paul’s Boutique”, in fact the whole track has that feel.

“The Sparrows” is a different sort of track as well. It’s a really dark track, which is nothing new for Killa Instinct, but it’s darker than usual and wouldn’t be out of place on The Crow soundtrack. Over the dark instrumental is a mix of spoken word, slowed down vocal effects the Killa blow on this track is Bandog’s short yet wicked rhyme in the middle of the track. Not to mention some lovely DJ cutting by Geta buried within the mix.

Although for the most part this album is exactly what a long time Killa Instinct fan would’ve wanted and expected to hear on their long awaited debut LP and other tracks such as “Murderous Material” (with a classic Inspectah Deck chorus sample), “Pass the Sickle” (continuing the Wu theme with a RZA’s voice being cut up something lovely by Geta) and “Pain Verse 1” (with Bandog’s cool attempt at Overlord X’s Lord V) do not disappoint by staying within the realms of the groups raw, dark and hardcore sound.

If there’s any complaint it’s that with 2 of the 11 tracks being instrumentals (dope and relevant instros I must say) the album is perhaps a bit short but I’m just being greedy as it is an album of brilliant hardcore UK hip hop in its purest form and proves that hip hop dreams occasionally come true.