Swamp Thing is the Toronto group consisting of Timbuktu, Chokeules, and Savilion. They announced their presence in 2011, when they released their first EP, Grindhouse. Every year since, they’ve released an album on Halloween, often dealing with themes of horror and science fiction. This year, they’ve teamed up with producer Ollie Teeba of The Herbaliser and Soundschi to release their latest album, Salty Gator.

Back in 2013, The Herbaliser went on tour in France with Teenburger, the duo consisting of Timbuktu and Ghettosocks. From this tour, Timbuktu and Ollie Teeba hit it off and planned to work together, but living in different countries and having different groups to juggle meant that it was hard for both of them to make their schedules line up. They eventually did, though, and the resulting album, Million Pound Note, came out this past May. Fortunately, Timbuktu didn’t just say “That’s that!” and send Ollie Teeba on his way, but instead pushed forward and also got him to contribute production to the new Swamp Thing album as well. What this means in a practical sense is that this is probably one of the least “spooky” Swamp Thing albums, and it doesn’t necessarily adhere to a theme the way that other projects do, but the tradeoff here is that Salty Gator slaps, and it slaps hard. Teeba’s bread and butter has been digging in the crates and making some funky and soulful boom bap beats since the mid-‘90s, and that’s exactly what he’s bringing to the table for this project as well. There are songs here and there that have a darker tone to them, but Teeba isn’t specifically diving into old horror movie soundtracks like Swamp Thing has done on projects past. This isn’t a deal breaker, though, because if you’ve spent the time with Swamp Thing, or any of the related Backburner projects, you know that this is a crew that came up on classic East Coast hip hop of the ‘90s, specifically groups like Wu Tang Clan and Boot Camp Clik, so Teeba’s beats are right in their wheelhouse. They still manage to sprinkle some horror references throughout, but otherwise they are just having fun talking some shit and trying to outdo each other with clever wordplay, nerdy pop culture references, and silly punchlines. They also bring a lot of friends along for the ride, with Ghettosocks, Aquakulture, DJiRATE, Jesse Dangerously, Wordburglar, More or Les, and Nilla all joining in the fun and really making this sound like a crew album.

Is this the best Halloween-themed album from Swamp Thing? No. Is this a Swamp Thing album that is a lot of fun to listen to, featuring some great production from a legend in Ollie Teeba? Absolutely. So bump this shit and have some fun for a minute.