Customer Reviews

Overcast

5 star:		(41)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

when this album was released in 1997, atmosphere was truly an underground group consisting of 2 mc's (slug and spawn) and their producer (ANT). this album, dropping before spawn left the group, is atmosphere at its finest. ant blesses the album with gloriously dark beats, perfectly complementing the pre-whining-about-girls slug and spawn rhymes. great great album, and a very nostalgic one for me. fans whose first experiences with atmosphere were god loves ugly or seven's travels might not recognize the style of this album, but in my opinion it is their best, dark, grimey, and perfect.

id also like to take this time to respond to the review below. as a black man, i take offense to this review which groups nas (who released one of the greatest hip-hop albums of all time, "illmatic") into a bling-bling category and makes a list of exclusively white hip-hop artists which supposedly represent intelligent hip-hop. i dont mean to say that these are not great artists, but your list reflects an ignorance on your part of other great intelligent hip-hop that also reflects the black struggle, such as cannibal ox, krs-one, binary star, black star, the coup, and many others. thank you

If u love dark, boom-shattering, grimey, raw, and old-school hip hop, then Overcast is for you. Of all the Atmosphere albums, Overcast is by far the most pure, most hardcore hip hop sounding album. If you want your UNDERGROUND hip hop albums to be dark, chilling, and grimey, u must cop this album.

Slug's flow is perfect on Overcast. He got more 'talky' in his later albums and less with the smooth rhyming. Basically i enjoyed all his albums, it's just that Overcast is by far the greatest.

i'll rank this album right up there with the UNDERGROUND greats: Aceyalone: All Balls Don't Bounce, Deltron 3030, & Pete Rock/CL Smooth: Main Ingredient.

My ranking of the Atmosphere albums:

1) Overcast
2) God Loves Ugly tied with Lucy Ford
3) Seven's Travels

This is the first Atmosphere album. My friend from St. Paul turned me onto this stuff way back when and for a while there I was a Rhymesayers fanatic. I hate to recommend hard to find and out of print stuff, but I would highly recommend any of the old Headshots mixtapes if you can find them. Particularly volume Seven which is a Slug album from start to finish and by far his best. Overcast! came out when these guys were hungry and most of the Rhymesayers releases during this era are solid, e.g. The dynospectrum. Slug, Spawn, and Ant complimented each other well and as much as I find Spawn annoying sometimes he brings Slug down-to earth. Kinda the way Big Juss complimented EL-P. All in all this is a good record. It's the kind of record I made certain everyone I knew heard, since, at the time, I was the only one in my area code who had heard these guys. Slug is a very skilled emcee, and I think it's unfair to lump him into backpacker hip hop (whatever that means anyway). Take the Deep Puddle Dynamics record for example. Listening to that album, it's so overwhelmingly clear how much more skilled he is than Sole, Alias or especially Dose One. I still have the first three Sad Clown Bad Dub's in my collection and a bunch of old Headsots tapes. Recently, I found myself going back and jamming Overcast! and it really is a solid album. It never reached the exhaulted heights of Aceyalone or Common (and by that I mean ressurection era Common) or Hiero, but few do. This is a good album and a worthwhile purchase. If you only buy one Atmosphere album, make it this one.

some may argue the fact that a new age album could be nothing but noise. With Overcast: Atmosphere, you are getting a hypnotic mixture of beats and poetry. This may be one of the only albums that could be listened to reapetedly with out the slightest change in satisfaction with every ryhme and hit of the drum. If you are looking for an album that you can listen to while you party, drive, talk on the phone, or just go to sleep, this is the album. Atmosphere isn't for black kids, and it isnt for white kids...Atmosphere isn't Rap music, hip hop music, or rock 'n' roll music...it's life music. So allow yourself to slip in to an ecstasy, and have a conversation with the lyricist.

Atmosphere's "Overcast" is def. my fav. album from the group. The reason it's my favorite, is because of the olds chool hip hop vibe it gives off. It's different from the other albums, production, and lyric-wise. Spawn is great on this, and Slug does what he does BETTER on this album, IMO. This is such a great personal, chilled out record. It's something that you can lay back and just vibe with.
So...if you're looking for an album to just relax and relate to, check it out.

This album in my opionon is the best of all of Atmosphere. This is really the underground Atmosphere. The album was released in 1997 and very few to no people knew about this group. In Overcast!
there is two mc's Slug and Spawn before he left Atmosphere and fellow producer Ant. This cd has the closest style of underground hip-hop like Slug's group Headshots. Headshots Volume 7 is the best of all, but until Headshots Volume 7 comes out on cd in 2005, this is the best Atmosphere album.

This is by far my favorite Atmosphere album. It might take a back seat to Headshots 7 once that comes out on cd, but til then this is the king. Slug and Spawn are 2 of the hungriest mc's on this cd, there just isn't a single verse that doesn't touch a chord to some degree, others are just breathtaking. If you've listened to anything from these guys and liked it and haven't purchased this yet. You're way behind my friend...this is hip hop at its best.

Overcast is the perfect first album...not counting "headshots"...that any hip hop group could release. It's been called "life music", and that pretty much sums it up. The beats are much more laid back than anything else that they've put out, and WAY less..."emo"...for lack of a better word. Spawn isn't up to par with slug, but very few people are, so its not a very big deal, and he doesn't stand out or anything. All the songs are amazing, well produced, and essentially perfect. but again, this is not atmosphere's best. Lucy Ford is by far the ultimate atmosphere cd. but even still, this album is not mediocre..or anywhere remotley close to that. buy this now and cry tears of joy

....First let me get this out of the way. As an aspiring MC/Producer, Atmosphere has been the one of the most influential hip hop groups to me since The Pharcyde. Contrary to what anyone thinks or says, Atmosphere has, in my view, valiantly withstood the test of time where soooo many other original underground hip hop acts have fell. I have to say the deepest respect I have for them comes from the fact that they've defied all what makes a rapper 'hot' and were still very successful especially by underground standards. Every single up and coming emcee trying to do his/her own original thing always has all kinds people trying to tell them what's hot, what will work, and what won't work. But screw them, who are they and what the hell do they know?!?! And it's that type of mentality that led Rhymesayers Ent. & Atmosphere to become a force to be recon with in the indie world till this day.
ANT, the producer in Atmosphere, incorporates the addictive hard "New Jack Swing" drums with melodic vintage sampling-style beats (Reminicent of DJ Premiere, Erick Sermon, Easy Mo Bee, & old school RZA, etc.) that made me fall in love with hip hop in the first place. And Slug is quite possibly (but extremely arguably) a "perfect" emcee, having the deep, intuitive, imaginative, dexterous lyrical complexity but still equally maintaining a confident combative persona to remind you why he's one of the best in the entire hip hop scene, and I say that very un-biased (having Nas, Del The funky Homosapien, UGK, & Devin The Dude in the same CD changer with Atmosphere).
Now, for the review.
This debut album is great on so many levels. Mainly because of the seemless change in mood within the tracks, from rebellious, to combative, to informative, to humorous, to sacastic, but keeping an eerie traditional underground sound.
I don't know what 1597 stands for , but it's a sick introduction. From then on, Slug and Spawn send you on a very detailed lyrical journey into their minds from complicated women to drug abuse to people who don't listen to lyrics to just plain showing off (Multiples Reprise). On "Brief Description" (track 2) Slug pretty much gets absolutely every point he needs to get across as an emcee, which was a genius idea makin it the second track. Overcast was designed to shut down whack rappers on every level after a thorough analyzing, everything that was needed to be said was said here and think that's why slug somewhat abandoned this style and moved on to talking about life, girls, and having issues for the albums following this one.
While now days the sound of Overcast is very vintage, this is still easily a classic debut album. I think Atmosphere would've still been labeled a legendary hip hop collective even if Overcast was the only album they ever dropped.
Believe me hip hop heads, if you haven't heard this album yet, it will stay in your CD player for many days. Overcast! Definitely goes about no. 3 in my ultra vast list of great debut albums, and I mean for all genres. Buy it.

- Chris BlaQ

The first atmosphere album was a glimpse into the future of hip hop in the Twin Cities. All of the Headshot fans(such as myself) couldnt be more excited for the debut album for the 4 members of atmosphere (THATS RIGHT I SAID 4)

Its just a shame that they couldnt work out their differences. They had such a great sound. It was almost as if every track one emcee would set the bar and the 2 would duel to raise it higher and higher. ODE TO THE MODERN MAN is a perfect example of what iam speaking about.

If anyone wants to check out Spawn I encourage you as he is still rapping, although under a different name. He now goes by the title "REK THE HEAVYWEIGHT" check out his album "Timeless" its pretty good all though he doesnt have the help of ANT any longer. Its worth a peek

Get overcast.. Its hip hop at its finest