True Live- The Shape Of It (album)

In 2006, True Live released their debut album, a year after their debut EP.

A viola cadenza to start a hiphop album? Yes! It works brilliantly, both in its own right and as a lead-in to the next song. As good as it is on the album, hearing Improvisation On A Theme played live takes it to another spine-tingling level.

Keep Myself Awake continues the brilliant melody of the intro, and adds a fantastic groove, great lyrics and a nice simple singalong chorus. A wonderful combination of catchy and emotional.

Speaking of catchy, the chorus of TV is dripping in catchiness. Great stuff. The experimental style of the chorus is a bit of a dilemma for me: on one hand I dig the jazz experimentation, on the other hand it does disrupt the feel-good pop energy at times. However what definitely works a treat are the lyrics, keeping it "real" with some nicely biting social commentaries.

The beatnik influences on Be That Cat don't really appeal to me. Carry Yaself has a great story about a wannabe Eminem, although the staccato groove doesn't really do it for me.

Evolution isn't a song I'd listen to in isolation, but here it works well as an interlude. This is one of four songs that also appears on the EP, and unfortunately I can't help but comparing these album versions to the EP, In the case of Evolution, the extra cameos and effects of the album version detract from the beautiful simplicity of the song.

Question This is just as brilliant as on the EP, in fact I think it's the same recording. And Try Walk Left surpasses the EP version, thanks to somehow having even more vehemence crammed in. Brilliant.

Bounce unfortunately suffers in comparison with the version on the EP. On the album, the laidback tempo at the start compares poorly cousin to the start-to-finish energy of the EP version. And while I'm not a fan of excessive profanity, neutering the rallying call of the crowd from "shut your fucking mouth and throw up your hands" to "shut your damn mouth..." is a terrible compromise of artistic purity. Shameful! In all seriousness, though, it's still a great song.

Audio quality rant incoming: Conventional wisdom would be that the bass sounds are flabby and bloated, robbing the choruses of tightly-controlled hits of the kick-drum. However the benefit is a double-bass just dripping with character, so I think it was an excellent decision. Looking at the higher-pitched sounds, the strings in particular are a pleasure. It all adds up to a unique and highly enjoyable sound.

Side Steppa introduces a fantastic "mad professor" element. Primal and insane, with the ego on overdrive. The rap put-down of "Fuck man, I freestyle better than that" sums it up perfectly. To me, it sets the scene of a tribe psyching themselves up before battle. Rather than just describing it, the song manages to make you part of it, creating a fantastic experience.

Let Out pulls off the same incredible stunt as Side Steppa, this time with a more electronic style, to keep things fresh.

Favourite songs

Improvisation On A Theme, Keep Myself Awake, Question This, Try Walk Left, Side Steppa, Let Out

Worthwhile?

Hell yeah! Even given the overlap with the EP, this album has plenty to offer. The band has been described as having the novelty of "hiphop with strings", but actually it's "self-aware hiphop with intelligence (and strings)".