Infinite Sounds UK: Album Review: Uber Magnetic by Uber Magnetic

Uber Magnetic

Just recently a nice little package dropped through the letter box inviting me to be a part of the Hidden Content Club. With that package came a nice lathe cut 7” single and digital download by Uber Magnetic, otherwise known as the duo of Roughneck Jihad and Junior Disprol. This was a cleaver piece of promo for those who had supported the Plague label in the past and was in lieu of the upcoming self-titled double album by Uber Magnetic.

The Album dropped recently, 29^th September 2023, the day I was in Stamford for the Hip Hop 50 Park Jam, and so I had to hold the review over until I had the time, and that time is now…

Alongside Uber Magnetic are Cool Edit Chud on production and features from SIR Beans OBE, DJ Jaffa and Krash Slaughta. There is also the very dope cover are from the man himself Junior Disprol, and it’s all released via Plague.

As this album is a double and some sixteen tracks deep, I’m not gonna mess around here but get straight into it…

Kicking off with Wake Em Up we are treated to this Hip Hop rock vibe that seems to invade your whole body, which has the effect of making you nod your head and move your body. Meanwhile Uber Magnetic reach into our minds and proceed to scramble our brains with some intricate word play that pulls you in a multitude of directions, a bit like the scene from Hellrazer (the original film), now whether we get to return to normal is another thing. Now we are trapped in dark room in the mind, with our consciousness torn into a thousand pieces, SIR Beans makes his first appearance alongside the UberMags on Now in a Minute, where the drums and bass mix with the cuts to produce a sound that, whilst being having jazzy edge, continues to tug at various elements of our awareness. With our awareness already stretched, the UberMags come at us from various angles and, seemingly, moments in time as they, somewhat calmly, tease us with bars that could be all about the now or perhaps, what might be happing in a minute. By now you might be thinking your on something, and you’d be right because the UberMags and DJ Jaffa hit you with the realisation of a Brain On Drugs. The drums and bass guitar sound has you floating along, allowing you to forget the fragmentation of you mind, and all the while the UberMags spin words in lines that have you envisioning a plethora of mind-bending things beyond this reality. SIR Beans OBE returns with the UberMags on guitar infused Weirdo, where the beat just about keeps you anchored in some form of reality, although knowing which reality you’re in now is questionable. Here the UberMags have you questioning who are the weirdos, is them or us? But, trying to figure that out just brings back that realisation that mind is fragmented and you’re losing your grip on reality.

With any sense of reality quickly disappearing, you don’t even realise that side one is over and you’ve flipped to side two, that all depends on which reality you began in, the physical vinyl reality or the digital one. Drums and a nerve straining piano bring you back to music as the UberMags take you to Upstate Dead; a place that, according to the UberMags, is populated by the bodies of those they have left behind, where what is left in the wake of that which went before, is nothing more and nothing less than the echoes of the past. Now if you’re wondering how all those residents got upstate then Crush, Stomp & Delete might give you an idea. The beat and mind numbing guitar notes and keys on the bridge, bring a strangely enjoyable head nod sound. Krash Slaughta provides cuts here as the UberMags state exactly what they do to the competition, making you realise that there more residents in that place upstate, it’s just that some of them have been deleted from existence. Percussion and a mind-bending electronic sound, literally push you into Body Everybody where the UberMags spin lines, words, similes and more, around the word Body, leaving you with this faint awareness you’ve just had your fragile mind dumped in a lyrical blender. Drums, percussion, and jazzy horns, get you head nodding along as the UberMags, in this case just Roughneck Jihad, give us a little ditty that’s all about men and women. But here when he is talking about how to Hug It, here its about how to hug something with your mouth. Now in your fractured mind-state I’ll leave you to get the gist of that, and while you do that, we switch from disc one to disc two, cos I’m in that vinyl physical type reality…

If you thought things might ease back a little bit, then you’re mistaken as Foaming At The Mouth hits with heavy beat and this almost sonic sound that penetrates every part of your fractured mind. The UberMags now demonstrate what we knew all along that they have the sickest lyrical delivery you’ve heard in a long time. It rubs off on the listener too, the more you listen the more you’re likely to be foaming at the mouth too. A melodic drum beat, and a mixed-up, mind-numbing organ sound brings a sound scape that suits the Scientist Pt 2 and how they might study the complexities of the mind and universe. Here the UberMags create the sort of lyrical content that matches what scientific study is all about, while at the same time creating something that most scientists would struggle to explain when putting it under the microscope. It also leaves you wondering what happened to the Scientist Pt 1? Heavy drums and horns form the basis for the boom bap, breakin’ style beat of Cognac, featuring DJ Jaffa on the cut this one has so many elements of classic Hip Hop vibes and delivers a warm feeling inside when you hear it. There is more devastating lyrical content and delivery from the Uber Magnetics and finally makes you feel like they are giving your fragmented mind a way to become whole once more. Drums, horns, and bells give rise to Cliff Spab, another sound that has a more classic Hip Hop vibe to it. This one sees Junior Disprol going solo and demonstrating why he is one of the UKs best emcees, nuff said right…

As we finally begin to regain some hold on reality and repairing our fragile mind, we are aware that we’re about to head into the final side of the album. We begin that final part of the journey by Floating On The Silence, a heavy pounding sound with the faint sound of piano and vocal samples, which all combine to give this one a sound that really draws your focus in while keeping your head nodding. As hard as it might be to hear it, there does appear to be a message here helping to bring you back to earth from the sheer weight of what has gone before this moment. There is this feeling that for all the lyrical mastery on show and the life experiences of both emcees, there is this hint that the important aspect of anything is the silence in-between, its like the place where I take myself to interpret what I hear in the music, those quiet moments are what speaks the most so be mindful of them as they help bring you back to yourself. Drums and bells once more tweak our minds back to an alternate universe for a few minutes on Pterodac Feather. The UberMags bring those similes, metaphors and more together to show just how good they are as a force on the scene. Sometimes you just have to enjoy a track without the analytics and its better. Up next is Vodka & Milk featuring Krash Slaughta, a solid had nod, boom bap beat here gets the pulse racing as the UberMags celebrate what it is that makes them work so well together even when they seem so different. It’s true that on the face of it they appear so different as emcees that you would never think of putting them together but, now they are finally together on one long player it is evident that they mix far better than you might think. Moving into the final track of the album there is a brief second when you are wondering how the UberMags are gonna bring this one to a close, and they do that with Charles Salvador (aka Charles Bronson, the UKs most notorious prisoner), mixing a funky beat with some jazzy horns, this one has wicked upbeat vibe to it. This one sees the UberMags look at the life of the former boxer who has spent most of his life in jail and most that spent in solitary confinement. It is an interesting take on his life as most people only know him as a criminal but, he has written many books and is also an artist and he changed his name to Charles Salvador in respect to one of his favourite artists, Salvador Dali.

Sometimes it takes a huge amount of mental capacity to delve deep into the music you hear and this album was one of those moments. The highly technical and intricate lyrical rawness of Junior Disprol alongside the more polished technical lyricism of Roughneck Jihad produces an album which is only matched in lyrical intricacy by the intricate nature of the soundscapes produced by Cool Edit Chud. I do use the word intricate a lot here because that is exactly what it is.

This is some wild ride of an album as the first twelve tracks pull apart your awareness, opening it up to new levels of understanding. You have to go into this album with no preconceived ideas of knowing what to expect, because if you think you know what’s to come, then hearing this for the first time could possibly destroy everything you thought you knew about Hip Hop and lyricism, in any form. Then, in the last four tracks they bring you’re shattered awareness back together with some more classic Hip Hop vibes, just to show where the roots of their craft lie.

What the Uber Magnetic’s do is to take Hip Hop from the UK and the US, grind it up, mix it what a whole lot of other influences, incinerate it and then cook up something, you never hear before but, only think you have. This is one of those new benchmarks in genre of Hip Hop, because you know where the roots of the sound lie but, when you take the music and the lyricism together this is something new, something raw and something that you may never hear the likes of again.

As I sit here, I wonder if I have even been able to interpret the exact nature of this album, it really is that good. It could be as ground-breaking as the release of the Ultramagnetic MCs Critical Beatdown, now that might be a bold statement but, I remember what effect that album had on me at the time and the effect Uber Magnetic has had in how difficult it was to really get into it, it’s the only comparison that seams to work for me, we’ll all see it differently I guess.

Uber Magnetic is out now on Plague, with a stunning limited-Edition vinyl, CD digital and even good old Cassette versions so, take ya pick…

My humble thanks to Danny Boyes at Plague, Junior Disprol and Roughneck Jihad.

I’m Out,

See Ya.

Steve.

LINKS

Get you copy of Uber Magnetic via Plague Here:

https://plague.co/merch

https://plague.co/album/uber-magnetic

Plague Social Links:

https://www.facebook.com/pg/plague11/posts/

https://www.instagram.com/plague_11/