The pop-friendly hip-hop of
Soul'd Out was clearly on the rise with
Attitude, with the boys powering their way through a massive set of high-energy works. The beats hail directly from the disco era for much of the album, but the rapping (courtesy of lead MC Diggy Mo, with some aid from Bro Hi) splits its time between old-school party rap styles à la
Busy Bee, drunken howling à la
Ol' Dirty Bastard, and more refined forms with a rapid delivery, not entirely unlike
Nitro Microphone Underground's. While the group has caught a bit of flack when compared to harder-edged groups, they really shine on
Attitude in their own right. The album opens with "Stealth," showcasing Diggy Mo almost entirely in English, with a slick urban tone. In this light, he almost sounds like a low-key
LL Cool J, and it's a functional exercise for him. "Cozmic Travel" goes straight to disco, the raps calling forth the spirit of
Will Smith (though with oddly placed shout-outs to Christopher Columbus sprinkled throughout). "Electronica" gets an added thrust here, with DJ
Shinnosuke using some surprising motifs as transitions and backgrounds throughout, especially in the otherwise-disco-infused "Voodoo Kingdom." Pieces like "Shuffle Dayz, Pt. 2" show off the
Ol' Dirty Bastard form with twisted, drunken-sounding deliveries galore and an interesting take not often heard in Japanese hip-hop. There are some excellent grooves along the way, with the loping "Funny Girl Ducky Boy" and "Master's Groove 2" being the standouts in that respect. Full-fledged pop-rap is given a turn in the uber-successful "Starlight Destiny" to finish out the album and bring the trio back to their usual haunting grounds. What's interesting in
Attitude is that
Soul'd Out largely eschew the advantages that the Japanese syllabic structure endows upon a rapper (again, as
Nitro Microphone Underground exemplifies), stretching their syllables out for extra beats in ways that are common in English hip-hop but rarely work in Japanese. However, they spend a good half of the album in English and use the same approaches to delivery, with surprising effects, with the syllables stretched and ordered just right. A little uneven in quality, and a lot of disco for most listeners, but
Attitude shows a new dimension of the group, and it's a promising one.