Great Scott: The Grand Conspiracy EP

“Great Scott! I forgot to tell Marty about DirecTV!”

— Christopher Lloyd, in an ad

Despite the appearance of a choice sample from Timothy Leary’s Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out, this EP from the arguably Great Scott is more Back to the Future III than Back to the Future II. The instrumentals are fine raunchy party nu-breaks, with “Defcon” and “Caravan” aiming for the Tipper/Lawgiverz realm and “Theorists” aiming for Prodigy/Crystal Method turf, but both come up just a little short. I certainly wouldn’t walk away if I heard this playing at a festival stage, but it probably wouldn’t end up as one of my favorite moment.

A couple dudes named Raja Wilco and Nibo lay some utterly pedestrian vocals down on a cut of “Theorists” (thankfully also provided as an instrumental and regretfully as an acceppella, which clearly reveals their lack of lyrical prowess and disjointed flows). The EP would have been slightly stronger were it only the three instrumentals. The Grand Conspiracy is good party butt-shaking juice as is, but it needs more work to hold the attention of repeat listenings.