HORRORSHOW's album debut, The Grey Space is scarily good. The band (ahem... two people) seems to capture a great snapshot of Australian Hip Hop at the moment and define the two sides, or schools, of the genre in this sunburnt land. Very different to the slightly gaudy, slightly gangstarish sound, groups such as the Hilltop Hoods and Terra Firma have popularised, The Grey Space is quiet and, you could say, passive. If you did say passive though, you'd be dead wrong.

MC Solo, really delves into his own space and, before your very ears, peels off the layers of his soul to expose an aggresively reflective yet universal lyricism that's quite disarming. The engineer aboard the Horrorshow steam train is a silky-handed Adit who digs up some gems and produces a low-key, instrumental-heavy sound that matches the flow of the young Solo.  From Fort Street High school, who boasts a good output of Australian talent like Josh Pyke, Unkle Ho from the Herd and Joelistics from TZU, the pair are only just now in their twenties - which when you're listening to the slick sounding soul-bare confessional of The Grey Space makes you wonder why you're not doing more with your life.

But don't despair, Solo does enough of that for both of you. The Grey Space is almost too personal in parts and slightly too self-depreciating. On 'Days Past' Solo admits that the album is "brought to you by the resolve of a broken heart" and indeed much of the album has that overarching sense of foreboding and melancholy you get from a conversation with someone who has nothing to lose. Then again, I'll contradict myself and say that the more reflective tracks like 'No Rides Left' are among the best - strong and encouraging despite the melancholy. It's just a bit too much like an Australian rap version of Dawson's Creek: teenagers spouting off impressive vocabularies to verbalise the conundrums of their overly analytical lives. It just lacks the perspective of life experience.

And this is why it's so exciting that this is their FIRST album. Everything is there: sound, vibe, thought and rythm and Horrorshow need only to put one foot in front of the other to get where they're headed - greatness.