Montana Matthews Meets Nevada Brown

Whether in a Cadillac, a walkman or on the dance floor, Southern Comfort is made for moving. They're Canadian producers with American names, and Montana Matthews and Nevada Brown have combined to create a nearly flawless album of beats for the underground hip-hop head that should appeal to those outside of the art form. The album starts with the drum and keyboard-heavy "Loss for Dental Floss," which is fun and funky, before kicking in hard with banging bass drums, cuts and a short little country bass line on "Dizzy." Together these two songs are a perfect introduction to an album of mostly instrumental songs that remain varied in sample selection but still interconnect by sounding so damn cool together. Further support comes from "Cool Idea Poor Mixdown Lost Vocals," which sounds pretty good without any vocals, "Look Out For That Guy," which puts Tina Turner to good use for about as long as tolerable, and the grinding mecha-tribal song brilliantly named "Track Nine." But, in order to make sure no one gets bored with the beats, Matthews and Brown mix it up on a couple of tracks, breaking the instrumental formula. Guest MC Dakota Dirt creates controversy and contradiction on "Easy Ride'N," sounding somewhere between Sebstop and Governor Bolts. While the vocals are sorely missed, a dub version of the track is included as well. There's also a spoken word rant on "Jimmy Trans-Camaro," a straight-up turntablist track with "Lost & Found Nevada Brown" and "Yee Haa It's Buffalo Riding With Montana," which nearly borders on rock. After all is said and done, the only song that wouldn't be missed is the untitled bonus cut a few minutes into the end, which finally crosses the line into indie rock, although its intro is pretty cool.