Gumshoe Strut

The Gumshoe Strut fits as comfortably on the Peanuts & Corn label as John Smith and the most infamous of their four-man crew, Your Brother In My Back Pack, which features Yy and General Gyst with Strut and Smith. The self-productions are different from those by in-house producer Mcenroe, but they match the Break Bread mould, and the lyrics float around similar nerdy topics and social matters. Gumshoe Strut pays attention to the details of the beat, bringing in a multiple selection of samples to keep each track from ever becoming monotonous, whether it's any of the vocal tracks, the short instrumental interludes or the four minute outro, "From Here On Out," which is the closest the album comes to wearing thin. When he brings the tempo up, the Gumshoe Strut creates replay-ready tracks like the cautionary tale "Bad Apple," the hypochondria of "Healthoughtodo" and "Lets Talk Trash," an easy pick for Oscar the Grouch's bling-bling fantasy. Plus, the guests really impress on two of those tracks. When the beat drops out under Yy's off-kilter rhymes only to kick back in again for John Smith, it's a fist pumping moment on "Healthoughtodo." And Gruf the Druid pulls off a similar stunt with "Lets Talk Trash" to drop a verse that gives more credit to the commonly held belief among P&C that Gruf kills them all with a microphone. It may not make the bread or break the label, but Clock/Works is another fine P&C (uh, P&C-related, actually) release.