Last year’s 5 O’Clock Shadowboxer release The Slow Twilight might have been one of the more overlooked hip-hop releases. The Philly emcee Zilla Rocca, and the Seattle-based producer Douglas Martin (aka Blurry Drones), combined Zilla’s hard-edged vocals over a plethora of sounds from electro, to psychedelic ’70s rock, to straight up hip-hop. The smorgasbord of musical styles made the album one that kept your attention going, regardless if you had a pulse or not. The duo is back with a new EP, Broken Clocks. For the first single, they take the album’s lead-off cut, “No Resolution” and give it the posse treatment, bringing along friends.
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5 O’Clock Shadowboxers – No Resolution 2 feat. Has-Lo, Elucid, Nico the Beast
The first single from BROKEN CLOCKS EP features the familiar sounds of Douglas Martin aka Blurry Drones’ assault on the breaks (”Impeach the President”) and the buzzsaw (”Venus in Furs”) coupled with Zilla Rocca’s original themes from THE SLOW TWILIGHT: urban distress, paranoia, and civil disobediance.
In typical posse cut fashion, the guests bring the goods. Has-Lo (HipNOTT Records), Elucid (Lessondary Crew), and Nico the Beast (YBMusic/Memory Lane Music Group) strike hard like the winter wind. It’s an update on a fan favorite from 2009’s THE SLOW TWILIGHT LP, sure. But it’s not a remix as much as a continuation of a nightmare fully realized with new voices narrating old time bombs. No resolution will save you tonight. – 5 O’Clock Shadowboxers
As the release mentions, this isn’t a “remix” (what is a remix anymore?), but more of a continuation of the previous theme. That is completely alright in my ears, as the beat was already on-point and the guests don’t take away from the feel of the track. Has-Lo, a fellow Philly emcee, drops a somber, apocalyptic themed, anarchy inducing verse. The Brooklyn emcee, Elucid, brings a gruff style that switches up the vibe of the track. The baton is then handed off to fellow Clean Guns member (Zilla Rocca’s other group), Nico the Beast, who lives up to his name as attacks the track like a hungry animal, bringing his trademark ruff flow close down the show.
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