Home Brew - Home Brew album review
Releasing a debut album is a daunting feat for any musician; choosing to make your first release a double album may be bordering on crazy. But Home Brew have proven time and again that they are no ordinary musicians and don't do play by conventional rules.
With a couple of well received EPs/mixtapes behind them, a viral video instructing people how to avoid police checkpoints gaining them some attention in mainstream media (not to mention a level of notoriety) and numerous sold out shows full of screaming fans, including at Homegrown in February 2012, they had already established themselves as an important act long before their album hit the shelves earlier this year. Their laid back rhymes and jazzy backing tracks, similar in style to underrated 90's act the Arsonists, seems to have hit a chord with New Zealand hip hop fans.
The album lives up to their reputation, but also shows off more of their song writing skills than the previous releases did, as the longer format allows greater room for experimentation and exploration of their themes. The album is packed with the usual Home Brew fare; tales of excessive drinking, drug use and general law-breaking, but it's the songs that stray from that path that really stand out - tracks like Basketball Court, reminiscing about good times had at a local basketball court and lamenting its loss.
At 21 tracks long the album rarely feels like it's dragging, as Home Brew have done a great job with the flow and maintaining the consistency of the album. There's only a couple of tracks that feel like they could have been left out, or at least saved for another release, notably the outro to the first half of the album, which is interesting enough but seems like an overly long stream of consciousness piece, rather than a cohesive part of the album.
The album really sets the bar high, for Home Brew's next release but also for hip hop in New Zealand. It's a breath of fresh air in a scene that had seemed to be getting a bit stale. Whether they can keep the momentum going for a follow up remains to be seen, but they've already shown that they can create hype around themselves and resort to unconventional means to promote their music. My money is on Home Brew being here for the long haul.
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About Home Brew
The trio of Home Brew are led by Tom Scott, with Lui Gumaka and beatmaker Hazbeats (Haz Huavi), and are joined onstage by a full live band. They established themselves off the back of a series of digital EPs they gave away for free on Bandcamp, along with some very entertaining home-made video clips posted on the internet, promoting their music and generally getting up to mischief while avoiding getting arrested.
Home Brew’s debut digital release, the Home Brew Light EP came out in 2007, with music produced by Soulchef and mastering from Chris Macro (Dubious Brothers). They followed that up in 2008 with the Last Week EP on vinyl and digital, featuring production from the crew’s Hazbeats.
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