You gotta love the balloons. Definitive Jux celebrates the 4th of July (or not) by teaming up with AmazonMP3 for a free sampler album, featuring new and classic tracks from Cage, El-P, Aesop Rock, Mr. Lif, Chin Chin, Company Flow, Del, Rob Sonic, Hangar 18, Dizzee Rascal, and Murs. Cop that shit. – DJ Pizzo

They’ve got obvious strengths, they can rhyme faster than just about anyone and they spend the majority of the album making sure you know that.  While it’s impressive it often seems they’re trying to show off more than their trying to create.  They open the album on a real solid tip with “Highly Anticipated”, clearly these guys are confident in their abilities and it’s a great intro to their sound and some full bass to pop in the stereo to flex the bass.  When they start to take it easy on the third track “The West Wing”, it sounds real solid over a nice horn sample as they trade rhymes, they make rhyming fast sound relaxed and that’s truly a talent that Twista could learn from.

The speed rap thing isn’t too bad until they get to “That I Know I Want”, it really begins to get tiring.  What is nice is the cohesion between their production and mic skills, the hyper beats do a good job of keeping up with the rapid distribution of lyrics.  Once you get to Sad you’ll hear one of the albums standout tracks that kicks off with a solid sample as the beats echo under their rapid-fire delivery and everything comes together.

The latter half of the album is not reserved for the filler material found on most albums and it’s great that the album gets better the further you get into it. “Feet to Feet”, and “Really Wide” are solid songs with a great beat, if this weren’t on Def Jux I could even see these making people move on the dance floor.  Next up is “Dance With Me” featuring a guest spot from Slug who helps the new cats over what sounds like a synth line from 1986.  All about the dance floor and the wildlife found within it’s an understated song on an over anxious album but it plays well.

Hangar 18 has talent, and if they keep it up, their next album will be even better as these guys are clearly improving with time.  If they can learn to relax the words every once in a while instead of operating their lungs like machine guns on the attack they’ll be Def Jux elite in no time. – Dane Johnson

      As probably one of the most original albums of the year, Hangar 18′s debut meets at the crossroads of 1980′s Run DMC jams and pre-millennial Co-Flow-isms, yet more playful, with several tributes to bars, booze, and booty. These are the two sides to the Hangar, which manifest themselves throughout each of the 16 Pawl produced tracks, each one leaning heavier in either direction. The lead off single, “Where We At?” puts Hangar in their element, in the form of a vocabulary rich b-boy anthem with the same spaced-out aesthetic that propelled Cannibal Ox’s The Cold Vien. The same can be said for tracks like the off-the-wall electro-drum propelled “Go Git That”, and the especially impressive “Saved By The Beezy”, where Alaska and Wind compete with breathless verses at the Mardi Gras. 

     While these songs will undoubtedly inspire windmills and backflips, the other side of the Hangar 18 will instead suggest lesser stressing body movements, such as inhaling and head-nodding. This is best defined on “Take No Chances”, where the duo ponder their own respective existences over Pawl’s haunting pianos and eerie electrical interference, led by a ridiculously spit hook in double (or is that quadruple?) time. And again on “Boombox Apocalypse” and “Hangar 18 & The Temple Of Doom”, both of which channel the production style of El-P through Pawl’s concoctions. 

      Yet where similarities and inspiration lie, undoubtedly an original sound in Hangar 18 has been defined. Nevertheless, throughout the sixteen tracks, among the varying styles present here, one can’t escape the monotony throughout the release. While it’s hard to pinpoint if this is because of the wall-to-wall Pawl beats, or the all-too-similar rhyme styles of Wind and Alaska (or a combination of the three), but at times it’s hard to pinpoint one track from another. This cohesiveness does keep a uniform sound throughout the album, but also hinders it at the same time. 

       Hangar’s debut is an honest and integral hip-hop record, yet like so many others, it may be a bit too far ahead of its time for people to notice. However the seeds of genius start with records like this, and if H18 were to keep on with consistent follow-up LP’s, critics could be singing a different tune in years to come, dubbing this, The Classic Debut Album instead.