Editorial: @VannDigital Reviews ‘Avant Garde’ By Constant Deviants (@Cnstnt_Dvnts)

There are a few reasons why I specialize in reviewing hip-hop. Hip-hop keeps people off the streets; being from Los Angeles, that’s a terrific idea & almost a blessing. At the same time though, this creates an oversaturation of music, most of which is pretty terrible. Coming from left field, is a review of a seasoned group who’s been in the game for a while. I’ve actually had a pleasure of really diving into their music a few years back, through an old cousin who collected their music. When Vann sent me some new material to review from them, I had a lot of doubts. But more on that later. Let me introduce Constant Deviants, a duo coming out of Jersey/Baltimore bringing some heat.

Let me first start off with the production. It was very simplistic almost too amateurish but this did not take away from the talent of the MC’s. The beats were fitting for the people rapping over them; a perfect example of how people can use simplistic rhythms, still flow over them without being too boring. It features production from DJ Cut and personally, I wouldn’t mind staying tuned to his development as a producer.

The overall presentation of the project was not as beautiful as I would have hoped. The music was swallowed by the overrunning nuance of the deep vocals. Although professional sounding & mixed, the frequencies were too low for me and that’s saying something significant for me. Nonetheless, the material stayed solid throughout the project with no real complaints apart from aesthetics.

The last part of this project deals with the rapping. Like every hip-hop project, there are good things & bad things. The good things about this project vocally…it’s difficult to pinpoint. Constant Deviants constantly pull from the beyond a feeling of old school rap, which is good for some people. Preferably for me, I’m not into the scene. If there was more variety with the projects, then you might have a better project but I can’t give this project more than one listen unfortunately. The lyrics could have been executed better but there is always room for growth.

Overall, a good listening project but not for me. But there’s always room to improve, which is good in this industry.