The Scribes are back! And they have a collaborator in Risk1. And they’ve got an EP. Let’s get into it.
- The Shipwreck
This starts off with an old school groove, piano simple chords, the beat, but I love the radio announcement at the beginning at the beginning.
This track moves along at a lazy pace so you know what’s been said, there are references to Mobeus, even a nod to classic American literature with “Of Mouse And Men”. The scratching is brilliant giving me that old school hip hop feel too. 10/10 on this.
- The Desert
Again with the voiceover but this time the beat is overladen with an eastern flavour so we are taken from the seas into the desert… this EP is definitely a journey!
I want to say that there’s a soprano sax solo playing but since woodwind isn’t my forte, I’m going to reserve judgement but it certainly conjures that Middle East flute sensation with the melody.
- The Forest
The thing I like about The Scribes beats is that they fit the words. It’s well thought out everything is planned, and in this case this is not just an EP, this is like a soundtrack. The way that the descriptions fit the beat just works – this gives me a creepy dark horror film kind of feel with that piano, those notes send shivers down your spine.
“I meditated on the devastation
Each negative can be an elevation
We perished at our very destination
These trees saved me man l’ll keep pacing.”
These lyrics intrigue me, it could be interpreted that the protagonist is dead, and is not aware of it… they could be lifted to another plain, and to pace is to wait for something to happen… you just don’t know but good poetry makes you think..
- The Return
So, we come full circle, this is is the closing track. The groove is comfortable, lyrically it’s a recap of this play, this epic musical… whatever you want to call it. I love the scratching in there too, it gives me the classic hip hop instead of trap beats which is a constant in today’s modern vibe.
What can I say?
Well to be honest, not very much this is exactly what I expected from my dudes from Bristol. They came up with a classy EP which could be considered a concept project from top to bottom it’s not thrown together haphazard everything in my experience with them has always been well thought through.
