Gasoline Sazerac

‘Dead Players came to my city and turned all the buildings into a bright green paste’ is the rallying cry of my potential tune of the year and a quickly-vanishing polar bears’ paw print on the iceberg that is their latest project ‘Faster Than the Speed of Death’, out on the behemoth UK Rap label Highfocus.

Maybe your favourite rap groups’ favourite rap group, or at very least just mine, Dead Players have been drip-feeding kids with unholy escapism since 2012 and my oh my are we glad to receive their next bout of heavyweight teachings. Whilst since then emcees Jam Baxter and Dabbla have been conducting their own solo sermons, when they do recoup with producer GhostTown it’s the same hot-wired stolen-car brand of rap that rematerialises again.

Despite the trio evolving and subsequentially relocating it’s only time zones that separate them. It was Dabbla and GhostTown who made up the time difference by jumping over to Mexico, a place Jam Baxter now calls home. Thirteen tracks of bouncy-castle, ankle-destroying beats make a beautiful canvas for Dabbla and Baxter to splatter with their iconic, punchy delivery; whatever the pace is, heads are bopping, fingers are being thrown and yes there is a tour so please save some of your knee cartilage for that one.

I’m not one to pick a track of the album, but ‘Gasoline Sazerac’ needs a mention, says the bartender. Stirred drinks aside, this had my cup of ice spinning; the sample used as a sort of chorus needs to be played through a proper sound system, but more importantly whilst the world around us is being sapped of all meaning, just do your thing.