If there’s one thing Oz hip-hop has lacked, it’s a towering behemoth to be feared and respected.

Well bust out the praise, because Illzilla is on the scene and they’re kicking over an office-block near you. Drawing their seven members from groups as diverse as Combat Wombat, Blue King Brown and Equills, , Illzilla is the future of Oz hip-hop - if rap is a rich tapestry, Illzilla is a big fuck-off pair of Auscam combat trousers.

Hear that thud?

It’s Illzilla’s second album, Wasteland, dropping through a set of headphones near you. Let me tell you, the sound is monumental. It’s layered, it’s spacious, it features actual string instruments and it breathlessly runs the gamut from funk to dub to dirty, gritty, down-home groove and back again.

DJ Wasabi and his four rhythm-section musketeers J-Zilla, Mista Sanova, Tommy Gun and Babzilla combine to create a sound that seems to have whatever it is slightly crapper hip-hop lacks. Maybe it’s the ridiculous amounts of talent. Yep, that’ll do it.

The standout track has to be As We Slept, opening with a haunting Islamic call to prayer and then getting right in to a rich, driving beat overlaid with staccato keys and overlaid again with some of the more politically-charged lyrics I’ve heard in a while.

I’m also a big fan of Live Enough, with Mantra spitting without pause over very nice, slightly off-beat jazz sampling and All In featuring Jornick gets wid de riddim with some great dub flavour.

For me, the lyrics and rapping aren’t Wasteland’s strong points.

Sometimes it seems good Aussie MCs get PJ Harvey syndrome where the more syllables in a line, the better and I can feel the same thing happening here.  The flow seems fractured and the imagery overwrought – it seems like MC Mantra know he’s good, and is trying a bit hard to let us know too. If there’s anything we can learn from the geniuses of the US scene such as Esoteric and Vinnie Paz, it’s that less is more when you have talent to burn.

But I couldn’t care less.

The beats are illa than zilla, the tracks are evocative, professional and fair stink of quality and although the raps are a bit dense, the MC Mantra themselves give sterling performances.

I’m pretty chuffed that Oz hip-hop can sound this good and show so much promise – there is nothing but good things ahead for the Illzilla crew, which means good things for the rest of us too.