“Put your hands in the air like it’s a stickup!” Hilltop Hoods are back with album number nine, their first since 2019’s chart-topping, platinum-certified The Great Expanse.
A pensive piano motif immediately sets the tone. Then enter a vortex of strings before fellow Adelaidian Nyassa returns to the fold, her powerhouse guest vocals bringing much emotional heft to the opening title track. She also features on strings-enhanced closer The Moth, giving this record a satisfying, full-circle feel.
Rolling rhymes intensify, syllables per second increase and when MCs Suffa and Pressure go bar for bar, it’s intoxicating. Pauses are also effectively utilised to illustrate “cliff… hangers” and tease, like limericks (see: “dic… tionary”) – ba dum tsh!
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With its triumphant, parping brass hook and stuttering electronic undercurrent, Never Coming Home (feat. SIX60) is a winning pre-game song – makes total sense they tapped UFC champ Alexander Volkanovski to star in the clip, then.
“My dad used to put on the blues, I could hear his head banging on the wall in the next room/ And now after he had passed, I realised it was music that he had passed.” Following the death of Suffa’s father last year, Hilltop dropped their ‘comeback’ single, The Gift (feat. rising soulster, Marlon) – a moving tribute to their parents.
Atop a boppy, danceable beat, Get Well Soon (feat. SIX60) rises above the haters: “Don’t worry ‘bout me/ ‘Cause I don’t think about you/ If I saw my life from through your eyes I’d prob’ly hate me too.”
Naked drops some truthbombs that kids need to hear: “Social media’s the new pornographer… The internet’s an elephant that never forgets/ Get intimate and maybe get a set of regrets…” – this one’s cheeky, both the bars and the beat, with a callback (“Go shawty, it’s ya birthday!”) elevating the song’s close.
“I need a number from Mr. Sandman to make me slumber like a kick from Van Damme” – Rage Against The Fatigue is classic, chucklesome Hilltop.
Juxtaposed by slick, jazzy instrumentation, The Omelette chronicles our narrator’s first (and only) “time on acid”, aged 15: “I’m scrambled, I’m cooked, I’m baked, I’m fried…”
“I’m close to The Edge like I’m Bono…” – Suffa brings LOLs to This Year.
Resplendent with whistling refrain, Laced Up is the gee-up you need before hitting the town (even though it’s about being skint AF).
For day one listeners and new fans alike, Fall From The Light is highly digestible, melodic hip hop with hooks upon hooks.
But it’s the witty wordplay, inventive rhymes (“Willy Wonka… pretty bonkers”), savvy pop culture references (“Acting out like Millie Bobby Brown…”), rap execution and impactful vocal performances that make this one sing.
