In a dichotic world beset with powerful interests dependent on that permanent separation, the U.K.’s Hacktivist offer the alternative, both sonically and philosophically. The band fuses grime, a British-born style of rap and hip-hop, with contemporary tech-metal to power a music that cuts hard with political and social bite. The group personify a communal connection that is the world’s best hope for survival. Their music transcends because it’s courageous, unafraid of style, dependent on insight and awareness.
“It’s got to have a message,” rapper and vocalist J. Hurley notes. “And since we have a platform, we may as well speak the truth because we get into a lot of people’s ears at the moment.”
Hurley and fellow rapper and vocalist Jot Maxi front the quintet, utilizing grime’s natural tendency for speed and directness to offer a sound that is both clever and pummeling. Hyperdialect, out now via UNFD, comes at the right time.
“It might sound a bit different to you guys because grime is kind of a U.K. thing,” Hurley explains. “It’s a little bit faster than hip-hop. I think that’s why it fits in well with the kind of metal that the band’s doing, because they’re both the same tempo.”
It’s fast music, cubist and all-encompassing, with the two front men trading verses at breakneck speeds. And through this direction, a circular oneness is born. A flow that is unique and proper, a sound that today’s listeners deserve.
“I think it works so well because it’s not J and me doing a feature,” Maxi says. “It’s not Jot Maxi and J. Hurley, it’s Hacktivist. So we’re not speaking from our own point of view, we’re speaking as Hacktivist, and that’s something we never needed to talk about or decide.”
As a singular entity, Hacktivist represent the communication and sacrifice that is needed to break through power. The past few years have seen the destruction of people’s basic rights to live ratcheted to a new level. This oppression that is dependent on the dichotic structures the powerful build, it where Hacktivist start their hacking.
“Hate is everywhere,” Maxi explains. “And that is something that definitely fuels our subject matter. We want to attack society where it is going wrong, and it’s going wrong all over the place, so we have a lot of places to attack.”
Hyperdialect contains songs of that common unity, a desire to dissect the state of the world that is merely presented, and not formed. It’s aggressive and geometric to infinite degree, but carries the spirit of non-violence and personal freedom as its source dimension. At times it sounds like a direct reflection of the COVID pandemic, but the record, and its intent and messages, were written well before the pandemic struck.
“The crazy thing is, there are a lot of issues that we talk about in the songs on the album that you could relate them to things since we recorded it,” Maxi says. “I’m sitting there thinking, ‘Wow,’ all this stuff is going to happen on the back of COVID that’s going to make it like we’ll need to write a new album direct, but it’s not true; every time a new thing comes up in the news, I’m like ‘Wait,’ we kind of already talked about that.”
Hacktivist are a band of the moment, a group that harness the spirit of the streets and its people, and uses that awareness to push for a change. They are expression personified, a new force in a new world, aware of the simulacrum that surrounds us. Hyperdialect is in your face, its power direct in all facets, a non-illusion. It’s also damn good! And will be spinning long into the years ahead and beyond.
“I’m confident that it bangs like fuck,” Hurley closes.
Listen to Hyperdialect below, and grab a merch bundle here.
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Images courtesy of Hacktivist. Featured image credit: Josh Gurner.
