The 1992 debut album 3 Years, 5 Months & 2 Days In The Life Of ... was Arrested Development's biggest but also only success. The hip-hop group around rapper Speech garnered a lot of praise with socially engaged alternative rap, in which real instruments and influences from funk, blues, country and African music were heard and a positive message was not missing. Unfortunately the group could not
… continue the success and although the album Zingalamduni was released in 1994, Arrested Development officially stopped in 1996. Speech continued solo, but his CDs received little attention. Perhaps this is the reason that he tries to breathe new life into his old group and after ten years a new studio album from Arrested Development is released. Among The Trees actually sounds like nothing has changed in those ten years. Good, the entire group outside Speech has been replaced, but otherwise the largely acoustic hip-hop of Arrested Development is still composed according to the same formula. That sometimes sounds pretty good, like in the single Honeymoon Day, but it is no longer original or controversial. (IV)more
