Belly

VINYL FORMAT. Given the current climate of the hip-hop world - where the most ear-bendingly innovative production often serves as aural sweetener for the by-rote thug lyricism of so much mainstream rap - the notion of "indie" hip-hop (at least as a signifier of boundary-pushing music) probably seems quaint at best and woefully outdated at worst. The Baltimore, MD (via D.C.)-based Food For Animals are all-too aware of this conundrum, but rather than retreating to Golden-Era boom-bapisms - or simply bathing such warmed-over beat production in fuzz - the three-man group take what they like, and blow the genre wide open. Moored by Ricky Rabbit's fractured, lush beat production - which references the gamut of contemporary urban and electronic music (Southern hip-hop, ghettotech, Baltimore club, dubstep, power electronics, straight-up noise) - rappers Vulture V and new member Hy weave intricate back-and-forth flows explicating the highs and lows of life in "the belly." Belly is Food For Animals' first full-length album, following 2004's Scavengers EP.