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Friday, April 10, 2009

Review: Common Market - The Winter's End EP


Common Market - The Winter's End EP
2009, Hyena Records


Common Market's latest release, The Winter's End EP, breaks new ground for the Seattle-based Hip-Hop duo. Using their traditional bass of R&B and soul loops, Common Market adds synthetic sounds to create a more ambient sonic landscape on The Winter's End EP. RA Scion leads the way with intelligent and accessible rhymes, even singing at times while Sabzi provides well-sculptured backdrops for RA's diatribes.

Nouveau Depart opens The Winter's End as a funeral dirge that questions people's reliance on religion in the face of self-reliance. The song comes to a premature end with a hard transition into Escaping Arkham, a soliloquy of a suicide victim on the precipice of the hereafter. Brasso comes back with a synth-horn jazz hook that is thoroughly infectious in a bit of musical trash talk about avoiding death. Slow Down Moses is a highly introspective look at recovery from the self-imposed death of a family member that questions our cultural dependence on things like psychotherapy to get by. The Pictures Of My Delorean Gray is an instrumental with, of all things, a bouzouki (synthesized) that is an entertaining listen. The EP closes out with a radio edit of Brasso.

Common Market sets the bar high on The Winter's End EP. RA Scion isn't afraid to say what he thinks, but it's clear he thinks. The rhymes here are intelligent, well thought out and musical in their meter and cadence. RA uses the language he feels needed to present his ideas but doesn't use language simply for the sake of shock value, which is repressing. The music underneath is well constructed and a bit unique for the genre. I highly recommend The Winter's End EP. It varies enough from popular Hip-Hop to catch attention of folks who don't normally pay much attention to the genre, and so well done that even hard core fans will want to check it out.

Rating: 4 Stars (Out of 5)

You can learn more about Common Market at http://www.commonmarketmusic.com/ or www.myspace.com/commonmarket. You can get a digital download of The Winter’s End EP through Amazon MP3.

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