Any musical genre is built on two forces. One playing by the rules, coalescing the genres traditional sounds and accepting its place in the pact, the other pushing the boundaries, testing new waters, beating fresh paths through previously uncharted territory. Zel Monstrous is defiantly in the latter category. Yes, Next Up is built around a hip-hop vibe but not like any you have heard before, this is hip-hop deconstructed to its basic building blocks, the beats and the lyrics, and then put back together using a musical mortar built of distant, alien synth sounds, strange electronic motifs and riffs which seem to have been harvested from deep space.
None other than Albert Einstein defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, and that sort of insanity is fine for those who just want to play it safe and tread generic water, but whilst Zel Monstrous might seem to making music on the edge of madness, his progressive and exploratory nature, the bravery employed in taking new paths, facing new risks, actually makes him one of the sanest and most focused guys in the game. The mind is indeed a strange but wonderful place indeed.
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