2020 REVIEWS: SKOMAZOM – SHOVE THIS UP YOUR HOLE & EAT IT

The latest release from the Enyu collective comes in the form of SkomaZOM’s new project Shove This Up Your Hole & Eat It, produced entirely by fellow member Skest. It’s as spasmodic and unpredictable as anything the group has released to date, and well worth the time of any fan of chaotic, experimental rap.

Firstly, it is crucial for me to compliment the mixing and mastering that have led to this project sounding so immense. All credit for this must go to Scott Delta and ziDiiL, who have managed to make this lurching monstrosity of an album sound remarkably clean and decipherable. The crisp production doesn’t detract from how insane these tracks are, however, as this twenty five minute release is a nonstop sensory barrage. In the first half of the project, listeners are subjected to titanic noise rap bangers (‘MPR’) and songs that buried in so many effects that they sound like the audible equivalent of a fever dream (‘Careless’). When Shove This’ first interlude begins, assaulting the listener with a mix of gritty southern hip-hop and disconcerting sampling,  it’s immediately clear that Skoma and Skest didn’t set out to make a conventionally structured set of songs.

Arguably, Skoma’s best vocal work comes when his vocals are lathered in autotune. ‘Cringe Compilation 2016’ is one of the biggest hits that the duo offer up here, Skest’s production skulking ominously beneath the rapper’s robotic hooks. ‘All – Str8’ is another example of Skooma employing vocal effects to great effect, his voice slicing through the atmosphere with immense power. The majority of the songs here however stick to very intense, Memphis-inspired rap that is often swallowed by the sheer depth of the project’s crushing soundscape. As the album’s final third begins, ‘Line in the Sand’ eliminates all previously established notions of the project’s sound. Here, Skoma is belting passionately over post punk guitars, his vocals once again smothered in Travis Scott-esque effects. The song ends with mystical chanting and gunshot sounds, because why not?

One of the last songs here is a semi-cover of Lil Peep’s ‘Girls’, possibly intended as a genuine homage but mostly sounding like a parody, and it’s fascinating to hear what a less melodramatic version of the track may have come out sounding like. A lot of this project’s aesthetic is self-deprecating and more than a little ironic, but even the shitpost-baiting tracks are beautifully structured and at the end of the twelve track experience I was more convinced than ever of the Enyu collective’s potential for genre domination.

Listen to the album in full here.

Follow Skoma on Twitter here.

– Chris (@108mics)

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