Karl Phillips and The Midnight Ramblers self-consciously mash up hip hop, rap, punk and rock and top it all off with some fairly lousy lyrics to yield four tracks of awkwardly assembled and cheesy crossover music that attempts to make a virtue of being supremely uncool and knowing it.
On the title track, the verses are delivered in a rapidfire style and pack in too many same-ending rhymes in succession. It doesn’t sit well, is unwieldy, clunky and, well, not remotely cool. And yet... ‘Faithful Stanley’ makes an attempt at narrative that doesn’t quite work, while ‘Stabby Joe’ wants so badly to be ‘street’, but rhyming ‘Tony’ with ‘homey’ just sounds cringe-inducingly lame. Closing off with ‘Nervous’ Karl and the Krew get down with a funky strut and make a crack at humour that again is only half-baked at best.
And yet... Yet for all that, I can’t say I hate it. Comedic crossover acts are mercifully few and far between, and even fewer pull it off. Like Castrovalva without the hardcore element, or GLC with guitars, there’s something about KP & TMR that’s endearing, and the fact they have a keen ear for a deep hook and catchy earworming chorus definitely helps.
