Album Review: Spit Syndicate - Sunday Gentlemen

Falling somewhere between the op-shop and ocker-hop that will polarise hip hop purchases in 2012-2013, Spit Syndicate's third long player will find friends across the spectrum, while changing the lives of none. The record offers production that's tighter than Joe Hockey's Jockeys, wrapped around Nick and Jimmy's jack-of-all-trades rhymes. The finessed beats and obvious love that have gone into the creation of Sunday Gentlemen makes it an easy listen – it wouldn't have taken much more to make it harder to turn off.

The good, then, for there is much. Judicious use of guest spots, on the mic and the mixers, make this a well-rounded record. Producers including M-Phazes, Adit and Styalz Fuego lend us their ears, and again the beats are top drawer. The opening suite of Amazing, Beauty In The Bricks and Folly is a remarkable first act and later on Same Storey (featuring Drapht) the gents match their guest's stretchy singsong syllables, contorting personal stories into something both digestible and repeatable.

There are discrepancies though, particularly in content. On the one hand getting “pussy”, on the other lambasting those who don't respect women is disingenuous. There are times when the multi-syllabic rhyme schemes stretch thin, and radio fodder Sip It Slow is derivative: For my next trick/My mind on my next trick/Got dimes down on my guest list sounding a little too much like a Kanye B-side. But that merely nitpicking. This reviewer just wanted Sunday Gentlemen to be great, and it very nearly is.