The ever prolific UK label High Focus Records are back with yet more dopeness with the latest release from Dead Players. After their sick self titled debut album the trio are back with another banger with their sophomore album ‘Freshly Skeletal’ and our boy Adam gives us his thoughts and what you can expect from the album…..

A thousand million rappers, that’s what we’re dealing with these days. Maybe we always were and the Internet just gave them all a platform, but either way there’s a vast haystack and a disproportionate number of needles to find.  We have two of the sharpest here in Jam Baxter and Dabbla, along with a producer of a rare order in Ghostown, collectively packaged as Dead Players. After a debut album that naysayed the game they return with “Freshly Skeletal”, an album that gives zero fucks for ‘convention’ and goes all the way in, in the hardest sense.

The sheer levels of levels on levels is frankly undeniable to surely even the most hardened ‘purist’, “Freshly Skeletal” finds them again blurring lines of genre with a sort of style of Hip Hop that is a word that doesn’t exist. This is not a 90s throwback affair, it’s not a trap affair, it’s not anything that falls in between, but it’s all of those and its own twist, basically it’s mad original.

Both emcees are unique and have extensive work singularly. Jam Baxter with his seemingly never ending vocabulary of abstract visions is still proving his rep as one of the best lyricists in recent times, with white hot confidence levels that find him writing at a level and rate that is hard to match. The tangents and the imagery, the imagination that he brings here still have me blown away, able to work each track as an individual piece of art whilst keeping a continuing narrative throughout his work .

Then you’ve got Paddy Mashdown a.k.a Dabbla, who has one of the most enjoyable styles to listen to in the scene, with a wit and an ability to turn a phrase with intelligence, while delivering it with conviction and style of his own there’s no one out there quite like him. I find him to be very relatable and honest with it as well, his contribution to this album is his best work in my opinion ( and that’s all that all of this is, my opinion) There’s no one out there quite like any of these three cats. Ghostown is gonna be responsible for many, many neck injuries with this production, back again with pigeon hole shunting melodies and speaker damaging drums, he just has class to his beats where some over do things with less effect. There’s full on bangers here from him,there’s trance inducing vibes outs, there’s a whole mess of creativity from a very well realised producer.

BIG, BIG tracks full of bars and flows to set this apart from the majority of releases, “Freshly Skeletal” is a lesson in what top tier means and there are also dope features from heavyweights Lee Scott, Sox, Illaman, Ocean Wisdom and Orifice Vulgatron to bolster this already impressive album as well. When there’s so much good music coming out this shows the men from the boys and the ones meant to be doing this from the ones who just can, and that’s an important fine line that needs drawing sometimes. High Focus keeps dropping benchmark albums, and though not everyone is going to agree on anything the chatter speaks for itself and Dead Players add to this again, I have no doubt this will be in a lot of people’s top fives this year.

Words; Adam

Dead Players ‘Freshly Skeletal’ is available now from

‘FRESHLY SKELETAL’ ON CD: http://bit.ly/1NLOIIW

‘FRESHLY SKELETAL’ ON LIMITED EDITION VINYL: http://bit.ly/1MIwfOC

‘FRESHLY SKELETAL’ DIGITAL: http://bit.ly/1NLPp51

VIDEOS….

Dead Players – ‘Call Us Now’ [VIDEO]

Dead Players (HF TV EXCLUSIVE BARS)

Dead Players Ft. Sox, Ocean Wisdom, Illaman & Orifice Vulgatron  – ‘Infinite Limousine Pile Up’ [AUDIO]

Dead Players – ‘Cooked’ [VIDEO]

Connect

Dead Players on Facebook: http://on.fb.me/1x0S9nv

Dabbla on Twitter: https://twitter.com/bigdabbla
Dabbla on Instagram: http://instagram.com/dabblaldz
Dabbla on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mrdabbla
Dabbla on Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/dabbla

Jam Baxter on Facebook: http://on.fb.me/1Kv29uz
Jam Baxter on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/ActualJamBaxter
Jam Baxter on Instagram http://www.instagram.com/Jammothy

Website: http://www.high-focus.com
Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/HighFocusTV
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/HighFocus
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/HighFocusUK
Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/highfocusrec…