Shock Trostic & Dash Render

In their hearts, Shane Trostic and Dash Render clearly haven’t lost what is great about hip-hop, as is obvious on every song on this album. The hypnotic beeping of the opening track, “New Voodo,” provides a constant even as the two rappers come in with a slightly frayed delivery, rhyming about finding unconventional ways of self-improvement and searching for the truth in era when too many people want to hand a version of that to us. “Darkside” features Extra Kool on the mike doling out self-reflective observations about the hidden parts of the narrator’s mind. The spaciously and lushly atmospheric “Hip Hop on a Milk Box” laments the loss of all the good things in life, gone missing like kids on the side of a milk box, often never to be found again.