Missill is a French DJ/Producer whose Mash Up album last year was a refreshing take on the 2Many DJs mash up style mix CDs, as it wasn’t full of horrible 80s cheese or obscure covers of shitty songs. Targets is her debut artist album, and I think it’s fair to say that it’s a solid release, but suffers from a lack of variety in sound.

There are some very good songs on here. Forward with Dynamite MC and Choose To Care featuring Blurum 13 are great hiphop / breaks tunes. Ill with Junior Red gives us a dancehall vibe, and Kema feat Yethz is a Brazilian inspired breakbeat rap. Dark Moon featuring DJ Netik is a dark breaks track featuring heavy guitars and slamming beats.

The problem is, other tracks on the album sound too much like those first few tracks. Toxick sounds almost exactly like Choose To Care. The sounds used on the tune are incredibly similar, and the flow of the rhymes is almost identical. There is an over familiarity within her own music that can be heard in tunes like Glitch, Kabrake and Get Busted. To me it kind of sounds more like her tunes are a remix of her own material than freshly composed tracks.

Also, all the later tunes on the album sound like turn of the century Plump DJs or Stanton Warriors. There’s nothing wrong with that, personally I much prefer that sound to the often cheesy pap they’re making now, but at the same time that sound is pretty dated, even though it’s only 8 years old.

I think the Mash Up album may have pre-empted the greatness of the Targets artist album, and created a greater sense of expectation of greatness. However, despite these minor issues, it’s a solid release, and I look forward to seeing what Missill comes up with in the future.