Hacktivist – Hacktivist EP 2012

Ever since I was a boy, I have loved collisions between metal and hip hop. Frankly, I blame that song by Faith No More. Meanwhile accidental encounters with Public Enemy vs Anthrax, the Judgment Night soundtrack, Rage Against the Machine and later Skindred, have stitched the possibility of MCs over guitars bass and drums onto my very soul.

Now the UK’s Hacktivist have dropped an eponymous EP mashing djent with distinctly non-American MC-ing. And I make room for one more patch on my hybrid hip hop hesher quilt. To be clear, this is not simply the excitement of hybrid vigour (winky, winky): the rapping is rather good and the djent while not particularly original possesses a quality that a lot of the Got-djent scene lack: big ball swinging groove by a band harnessing latest sounds and sounding like a band. The rhythmic interplay between hip hop and djent mutually reinforces, the former grooves while the latter splutters, shudders and slams resulting in a very listenable, coherent rhythmic complexity.