Muneshine & Vinyl Frontiers

Toronto, ON MC Munshine hooks up with Dutch producers Vinyl Frontiers on his latest drop, the Larger Than Life EP, which has the 30-something rapper spitting some serviceable, but not spectacular, rhymes over some over-produced soundscapes. From the suspect cover art (a too-close-up headshot) to some corny rhymes, like this gem heard on "Out of Towners" featuring the Get By, "Tight like a dead guy's necktie," to the cheesy chorus and unnecessary Method Man sample found on "Easy Does It," the end result sounds a tad forced. To be fair, the pace does indeed pick up a bit on "Get So High," the D-Sisive-assisted ode to Mary Jane and hard-drinking, and on the highlight of the disc, "What Now," where Munshine holds his own against guests Sean Price and Termanology over some throwback funk. Bottom line: if Vinyl Frontiers eased up on their reliance on samples in their production and Muneshine pumped a bit more swagger into his rhyme game, this EP would have been a whole different story.