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From www.belles.demon.co.uk
HipHop in Scotland, the official site of
Belles in Monica & Urbanelite Productions
The New Dawn Records Website
Dogfight has been reviewed!
http://www.belles.demon.co.uk/revs.html
REGENERATED HEADPIECE
DOG FIGHT
REVIEW BY URBANELITE
This trio, MC Shred Lexicon, MC & Producer Phon - X and DJ Exfyl hail from Astoria, NY and have already been makin waves both in the States and overseas, and their organisation will be known to many for hosting globalcypher.com & globalhiphop.com
As part of the packkage sent through, was a copy of previous reviews which indicated that this would be off the beaten track for hiphop, that these guys would be imaginative. So, were they right? Well yeah. There are some key elements to how this comes together.
First of all the production is interesting. Overall, it's been well produced by Phon-X. The difference is that the tracks have the core of bass & drum loops programmes, and these loops are wide & varied. There are then a multitude of different keyboard lines & effects added into the mix, often provided by other contributors brought in for the recording process. There are a select number of musical, vocal and effect samples, and overall the sound can move into the electronica sphere. Then of course there's the cuttin skillz of Exfyl layered on top of this, and these are fine turntablist skillz indeed. Then the final piece of the jigsaw, the emcee flows. The bio states that Shred Lexicon comes from a poetry background originally, and this comes through. The emphasis is on content rather than showcasin flow skillz. Phon-X on the other hand has come from a more traditional school of emcee-ing. They both have distinctive voices and overall its a melting pot of some of the West Coast hiphop-a-delic, east through the Canadian underground and turnin up at Exile & Lokey's door in Providence RI.
Is this recognisable as hiphop-well no. But back in the day, would the blingstas be recognisable as hiphop to KRS-1, or Chuck D?? If Pink Floyd were thought of generally as a rock band, then Regenerated Headpiece are hiphop just the same.
Certainly the spirit of hiphop is carried in their lyrical content:political, educatively mind expanding, humerous, questioning the status quo. Some of the motivation is truly bizarre. Like in Robot Whores they state that "Man needs sex not war. The only logical progression in technology is to make a real robot prostitute". And in New Colours "What if there was another colour in existence our brains have yet to register".
There is a logic to this. Many deep musings contained within deep spiralling productions, it's trying to take you onto the next level beyond the next level. Within all these high cerebral verses and musical maelstrom there are some tidy tracks to make the head nod, like Anthem Eater, Mass Times Matter and Retaliate.
This is an album fundamentally motivated by 3 guys first of all questioning the direction in which hiphop is going today. Their reaction to that is to go out at an extreme, both musically and lyrically like its been a cathartic experience. And at least theyre trying to say something worthwhile. Its not an album to necessarily judge the pure art of emceeing, however there are enough skills including those at production level that indicate they couldve produced a standard hiphop album in their sleep. Their rhymes include the lines "since hiphop became pop culture, I rearrange the structure" and "what happened to emceeing/what happened to poetry that could move a human being". So while their style may attract a cult following theyre still speaking the minds of a wider audience. There's a clear mixture of intensity and humour, kinda satire, and either way there is a feeling that they had a fuckin riot makin this. They could be at the forefront of an entirely new subculture, and if it's that or findin myself "In Da Club", give me the keys to the kennel.
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G.C.
11 YEARS OF LESSONS ON EXPRESSION 
