Shock & Awe(ful)

So... Death Grips' latest album NO LOVE DEEP WEB is out. I haven't heard more than a couple of the group's older songs and they didn't seem too bad and yeah Zach Hill is in there being awesome as usual but this isn't a review because frankly I haven't listened to the thing. And it's going to stay that way in the future.

If you already know what's under that black square on the .jpg above this, you can probably guess why.

CJ's previous essay "No Homo" touched upon an important point--no one really has control over what offends them or where the line is until they find something that makes them truly uncomfortable. It doesn't have to be a logically consistent thing, it's all rooted in emotion and cultural taboos and other bullshit that don't really make much sense to me most of the time because I am ridiculously hard to offend. Hell, I like things that most would find distasteful in the process of consuming a lot of strange media, and nudity--artistic or otherwise--doesn't even make me blink.

What's objectionable--or not even objectionable per se, just lame--is how these guys are so desperate to wring a visceral reaction out of people that they'd resort to the common pastime of drunken frat dipshits texting pictures of their junk at 2:00 AM. It's not creative, or even all that provocative. It's just fucking lazy.

It's the kind of stunt that's sub-Odd Future or even sub-Insane Clown Posse. And yet the professional music journosphere being full of pretentious cockwads "in on the joke" will heap praise on an album cover featuring a boner with sharpie all over it precisely because it's not from musical bottom feeders in Hot Topic gear trying to rustle the jimmies of suburban housewives, but from a fairly interesting alt-hip hop group that recently signed to Epic and has been getting some good press of late. This kind of shit is beneath them but it will move records, no question, and their riposte to Epic and the ensuing faux-controversy is also such obvious bait that I'd be surprised if there isn't a hooked worm attached. A quote from P.T. Barnum would go here if that wasn't belaboring the point.

Yeah, the irony is thick here. Wasting my time lambasting an a puerile album cover, telling you why it shouldn't deserve the attention that I am already granting it, that it already wants. Played me good, they did. Time may be one thing, but sorry Death Grips. You won't be getting my respect or my money.

Suck my dick.

Swans- The Seer

August 28, 2012; Young God
http://www.swans.pair.com/

It's not often that I feel compelled to write a review for a recent album that initially flew under my radar on release--after an album been in circulation a couple of months or more, most of the initial rush and novelty of writing about the contents of said record tapers off. In the rare times I'm spurred to write about music these days it either has to be something relatively hot off the presses or a lost oddity I feel the need to drum up as Something You Need To Hear Now. Everything else rapidly loses its luster.

Not The Seer. This is not one of those records you listen to a couple times and then feel compelled to spit out a load of typical music critic hyperbole for. Most releases that clock in at a daunting two hours or so have that effect, and doubly so when it's from an act that's been making music longer than some of its newer fans have been alive.

When Michael Gira at the tender age of 56 announced that he was bringing Swans back from the dead in 2010 with the emphatic disclaimer “THIS IS NOT A REUNION. It’s not some dumb-ass nostalgia act. It is not repeating the past," I immediately got very excited but also a little hesitant considering Jarboe would not be on a Swans record for the first time since Cop/Young God was released waaaay back in '84. Having regretfully little exposure to both the last few Swans albums or Gira's career in Angels of Light wasn't much help either.

That was okay because My Father Will Guide Me up a Rope to the Sky (Jesus that's a long title I am not typing that out again) was largely a clean break. It didn't sound like the churning black sludge of their infamous '80s period that gave breath to the careers of myriad lesser acts--my favorite Swans era, incidentally. It didn't sound like the more melodic Goth-inflected records after that or the more streamlined psych-rock of The Great Annihilator. It wasn't a continuation of Angels of Light's dark folk direction either. It contained elements of all but was decidedly none of them. And it was great yet at 44 minutes, strangely unfulfilling. Not in the usual late-career mediocrity sort of way but I was seriously worried that this short burst of new Swans material would be a last gasp of creativity before Gira got bored and decided to fold it again.

Two years later and we get a double LP. Well played.

The Seer is just as big a break from the slightly more song-oriented My Father... as My Father... was from previous Swans albums. It's got all the darkness, minimalism, and dissonance of the '80s material but the focus is outward, more expansive and spiritual. Barked declarations of self-hating depravity are abandoned and Gira intones shamanic mantras like Nick Cave on peyote (that is far more positive than it sounds). The industrial vibe is also long gone--the credits reveal a kitchen sink of instruments ranging from lap steel to bassoon but, refreshingly these days, not a single obvious keyboard in sight.

The songs often stretch for post rock-like lengths."The Seer," "Piece of the Sky," and closer "The Apostate" at 32:14, 19:10 and 23:01 respectively are frigging epochs containing naturalistic expanses of organic ambience, guitar vamps, bursts of noise, tribal seances, and even a sardonic ballad midway through "Piece of the Sky" where an otherwise self-consciously grimdark line like "As the sun fucks the dawn" takes on a wry wit coming from Gira's wizened croon.

The shorter pieces are no less memorable. "The Seer Returns" has Jarboe returning for a truly spellbinding performance with an oddly catchy, bluesy shuffle despite its eerie apocalyptic aura. Taking up the WTF Cameo Spot from Devandra Banhart on My Father...'s "You Fucking People Make Me Sick," Karen O shows up with a surprisingly sweet and gentle vocal turn on "Song for a Warrior." Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker of Low add their chanted vocals to the madness dance of "Lunacy," rivaled only by "The Daughter Brings the Water" for sheer skin-crawling effectiveness.

And then there's "Avatar," which simply defies description other than to say it effortlessly achieves the kind of effect that late-period Tool seems to be striving for minus any sense of that band's goofy pretension, or maybe a more subdued Neurosis. The teacher returns to school the young'uns, and it's easily the centerpiece of the record.

I've dropped all 120 minutes of The Seer twenty times since it came out and every time I hear something new. If that's not a hallmark for Album of the Year material, I dunno what is. Yet what would be a fitting epitaph to the careers of many long running, less creative bands is but one more marker here. Gira says it will not be the last of New Swans.

Fuck yes.

-SJ

Baroness- Yellow & Green

July 17, 2012; Relapse
http://baronessmusic.com/

If there's anything that'll seriously rankle metal elitists, it's any suggestion that one of their favorite bands is getting bored with having to be pigeonholed as metal. Blame the wave of extreme (and not unjustified) butthurt following Metallica's descent into Bob Rock-produced commercially viable hard rock--for a long time after that sordid episode, metal bands were largely scared shitless of showing any inclination of going soft, even as they tried to quietly incorporate more melody and depth into their sonic formula. However as a new wave of fanbase have discovered (or rediscovered) metal--a combination of mature adults who came back to the primal thrills of the genre after leaving it sometime after their adolescence, and younger hipsters who namecheck shoegaze-glazed black metal and sludgy riff throwbacks in the same paragraph as prime-era Sabbath and Motorhead--and have largely shoved the old loud/fast/heavy-at-all-times "authenticity" requirement to the wayside, a lot of bands have loosened up and started experimenting a bit more or branched out under different monikers to explore this outlet.

This is largely a good thing, but the outcomes are predictably uneven. Sometimes the results are great, sometimes outright terrible, but more often than not they are simply lukewarm. Opeth's recent retro-prog direction comes to mind. So do Baroness' Athens, GA peers Mastodon.  

Now I realize that our blog named Crack the Skye as one of the best albums of the 2000's, and I'm not here to argue with that judgment. But for me it marks the point where one of my favorite bands started jumping cartilaginous fish, and they were already seriously testing my goodwill with some of Blood Mountain's proggy digressions and goofy lyrics. I didn't like Crack the Skye at all, and I disliked 2011's The Hunter with its milquetoast-yet-trying-hard-to-be-quirky Adult Swim metal angle even more. Perhaps the reason for this was that they had lost their prior gifts in the process of leaving their tech/sludge roots behind, or they had just defined their niche so well that trying to branch out was bound to gut their sonic impact in some way. Whatever. Wasn't feeling it.

So when there was talk in interviews with lead guitarist/vocalist John Baizley of expanding Baroness' Southern-fried hybrid of classic Thin Lizzy-esque metal with a twist of sludge and punk into new territory, I was getting pretty suspicious that the band might lose it and that the special sauce that made both Red Album and Blue Record two of the best guitar-centric albums in the past few years was not going to be in evidence. AND on top of that it was going to be a double album, a classic sign of either supreme self-indulgence or throwing shit at the wall to see what sticks (often both).

I needn't have worried.

Yes, at 75 minutes and two discs, Yellow & Green is a bit lengthy at first go. And nothing here has quite the intensity of "Isak" or the instant earworm quality of half of Blue Record. But if this somehow qualifies as a disappointment (and yes there's already been a fair amount of backlash), then I can't fucking wait to hear what a failure from this band would sound like because Yellow & Green lands easily in best of the year turf. Period. Full stop.

If you liked Blue Record you'll feel right at home with Yellow, as it's a pretty organic progression of that album's excellent embrace of melody and hooks with meaty riffs and the best twin-guitar attack you'll hear today. Yet there's plenty of new tricks here, showcased to winning form with the best song on the release, "Eula"--a sweeping near-ballad that exudes the kind of murky grandeur that Mastodon used to excel in and features a bracing vocal performance from Baizley, who has tamed his midrange bellow into a fiercely emotive, sometimes multi-tracked instrument this time around. Then you have "March to the Sea," a quasi-rewrite of my favorite jam from Blue "The Sweetest Curse," this time backed with what sounds like cello (!)--a kickass combination. "Cocainium" starts with some dreamy keyboard-driven ambience and stretches out with ghostly vocals and a driving pulse courtesy of underrated drummer Allen Blickle. "Take My Bones Away" is the obvious single, both massively catchy and extremely dynamic it makes for a strong point of entry.

I'll bet the heavily instrumental and almost-jammy second half Green will inspire a lot of heated arguments over where this band is headed and whether it'll be any good, but you can lay that bitching to rest for the time being because if there's anyone out there that can make this kind of material more compelling right now, I've yet to hear them. "Green Theme" and "Stretchmarker" are staggeringly beautiful journeys that would render any attempt at words extraneous, leading into introspective anthems "Board Up the House" and "The Line Between" respectively which both fill that role admirably. From there Green does lose a bit of momentum but "Collapse" and "Psalms Alive" with their strains of psychedelia throw a welcome curveball, and the short yet melancholic and powerful "Foolsong" has the best lyrics on the album from a band that doesn't get nearly enough attention for penning some great ones, even outside the admittedly low bar set in metal.

Unlike many other transitional albums from metal bands moving out of their former element, there's nothing that Baroness does on Yellow & Green that sounds tentative or half-assed in any way. It sounds like the music they've always wanted to play, without betraying their previous works in the least. If this is the album that launches them into the realm of household name, it couldn't have been a better one.

Forget Mastodon--these are the Georgians you need to keep tabs on.

-SJ

El-P- Cancer for Cure

May 22, 2012; Fat Possum Records
http://www.definitivejux.net/

"I should have stayed asleep, waking up can get you killed"

... so a lot has happened since El Producto's last album, 2007's mighty opus I'll Sleep When You're Dead. A new President in the White House. The war in Iraq coming to an end (more or less). A financial crash and worldwide recession that still has everyone in a slump four years later. Bin Laden's death.  And Def Jux going on hiatus in 2010, just as a new and promising wave of hip-hop stumbled onto the scene.

Five years later, though, and most of the ol' bullshit is still hanging over our heads--Orwellian doublespeak, drone strikes on TV, TSA strip searches, domestic wiretapping, a failing war, a country split in two squabbling over the same political garbage while the same fat wallets get ever fatter.

Welcome to the New Normal, that 24/7 fog of overstimulated paranoia, creeping poverty and angry helplessness. And one Jaime Meline is very, very pissed off about it.

 "Kids sing along, this is all we have left bitch, sing a song"

That's not to say Cancer for Cure represents a retread for him. If anything can be said about El-P it's that he's one of the most forward-looking producer/MC's in the genre, and this album is the culmination of nearly twenty years behind the boards and the mic. The usual roster of Def Jux regulars--Aesop Rock, Cage, Mr. Lif, Vast Aire, et al--are out, but the replacements more than hold their own. Killer Mike, still rolling hard after his breakout success from this year's R.A.P. Music, drops in on "Tougher Colder Killer" alongside Despot. The bangin' centerpiece "Oh Hail No" has both a ground level, rhythm-in-your-bones verse from Mr. Motherfuckin' eXquire and a thoroughly ill blast of coked up imagery from Danny Brown that will have many heads rushing out to pick up last year's XXX (if they haven't already). Nick Diamonds provides a sublime, hazily crooned hook on late album highlight "Stay Down."

El-P's been keeping up. Worlds away from his halting and occasionally disjointed flow on first solo Fantastic Damage, the triple-time of "Request Denied" will leave jaw-shaped holes in the floor. However he hasn't traded an ounce of lyrical venom, and there are an elliptical flurry of bitter and incisive punchlines that will leave everyone within earshot puckering. From the overcaffinated Tropic Thunder-referencing (among other things) lead single "The Full Retard" to the sick interrobang of "Sign Here," El's dark worldview never wavers but has picked up extra layers of sarcasm and humor on the way through a miserable half-decade.

"To the mother of my enemy, I just killed your son"

But as usual, El-P's greatest asset are his beats, jammed full of dissonant piano hits, grimy loops, bent synths and droning klaxons, an aesthetic that still hasn't gotten stale--and these are some of the best he's ever dropped.

Residing somewhere between the stutter-step cyberpunk bangers of Fantastic Damage and the iron galaxy sprawl and industrialized funk of his last album, taking the best aspects of both and ramping up the aggression, Cancer for Cure's backdrop forms a perfectly grimy synthesis with the razor tongue screeds--abstract and exotic enough to retain the spaced vibe of old, but organic textures like the wounded animal horn skronks of "Stay Down" and the crashing jazzy percussion behind "Drones Over BKLYN"'s verses keep things primal and raw.

"You cannot throw me in the briar patch, bitch, that's where I live" 

Cancer for Cure's greatest moment arrives in the form of eight minute closer "$4 Vic/ FTL (Me & You)"--a rant styled similarly to I'll Sleep When You're Dead's "Poisenville/No Wins," El dedicates the album to fallen Def Jux labelmate Camu Tao (from lung cancer in 2008) and then proceeds to tear through that beat like raw steak and fucking dismantle all of society's dross with a hard focus worth more than a dozen lesser MC's. It's a triumph, one of the greatest things I've heard in a long time.

No one does this better right now on the bleeding edge of hip-hop, and if this album has disappointed anyone, they aren't listening hard enough.

"And I can no longer contain what's under my disguise, I've always had the cancer for the cure, that's what the fuck am I"

Pump this shit like they do in the future.

-SJ

Dirty Knobs- Ghost Geometry

May 1, 2012; Zac Bentz, Xero Music
http://zacbentz.bandcamp.com/album/ghost-geometry

Just a quick review to get us back on track.

We are big Zac Bentz/Dirty Knobs fans here at SB, and after the eight-hour sonic odyssey/mindfuck that was last year's Field Recordings from The Edge of Hell, I was definitely looking forward to some more epic dark ambient in that vein.

Along comes Ghost Geometry and despite being trimmed down to half the runtime of its amazing predecessor, it was well worth the wait and arguably even more cohesive and better.

It's hard to review something like this. Guess it basically boils down to... how do you feel about music truly bereft of plebeian reference points like melody, tempo, rhythm; of supermassive, slowly escalating drones and soundscapes that conjure imagery of huge spinning constructs in the outest reaches of space, endless reaches collapsing on themselves and reforming and collapsing again; each time different and strangely affecting yet empty and terrifying as the sustained notes and frequencies build inside your chest and stretch on to infinity; and after thirty, forty minutes, slightly ebb out only to expand ever further?

Either way stop standing on the fence. Click that link, put that dollar down, kill all the lights, crank the volume to window-rattling level, close your eyes and prepare for an extended voyage into the void.

You all want this experience; you just don't know it yet.

-SJ

A Token of My Extreme: 2011 Halloween Edition

Normally my 10/31 tunes are a lot more kitschy--Cramps, Misfits, Screamin' Jay etc. etc.--but this year my sights are set on complete skullfucking terror, something more Lovecraft than Roger Corman, and so I dug up some perfect sonic hellscapes to match. Figured I'd share:

1. "Sacred Rites of the Left Hand Path" by John Zorn
2. "Rosemary's Baby" by Fantomas
3. "Nature's Revenge [B-Sides Collect version]" by Skinny Puppy
4. "Napalm (Terminal Patient)" by SPK
5. "Hamburger Lady" by Throbbing Gristle
6. "Rattlesnake Shake" by Wolf Eyes
7. "A Hanging" by Swans
8. "Even The Saints Knew Their Hour of Failure and Loss" by The Body
9. "Bathory Erzsebet" by Sunn O))))
10. "Origin of Supernatural Probabilities" by Tangerine Dream
11. "Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima" by Krysztof Penderekci
12. "I Live to See You Smile" by Today Is The Day
13. "My Heaven [Silent Hill OST]" by Akira Yamaoka

A little on the short side, but if blasting this on repeat won't make trick-or-treaters skip your block I don't know what will.

Sleep tight!

-SJ

Opeth- Heritage

September 14, 2011; Roadrunner
http://www.opeth.com/home/

[Long and rambling review ahead, get comfortable.]

This reviewer admits a special attachment to Opeth, as they were one of the bands that helped rehabilitate my increasingly shitty opinion of the metal genre going into the early '00s. By that point nu-metal held an absolute death grip on the airwaves, and off the airwaves was a neverending and deadening flood of testosterone-addled hardcore and a horde of brainless, atonal death metal bands all cloned from the same Deicide/Morbid Angel/Cannibal Corpse DNA--or so I thought. Black metal and Gothenburg were both relatively new and alien to me, and as a teen with interest in relatively old-school thrash and doom/stoner metal (Pantera was probably the most recent band I would even countenance listening to at the time--yeah, I know) among other things a lot of good shit was flying under my radar while I was waiting in vain for the next Master of Puppets to show up.

My first listen to a friend's battered import copy of Morningrise was a real revelation for me. Here was a band that embraced both beauty and fury, with a sepulchral atmosphere, epic and constantly shifting songwriting and lots of acoustic and electric instrumental shading that I'd never heard in the genre (or anywhere else) before. And the riffs, oh damn. Being a staunch hater of extreme vox at the time, I still occasionally struggled with Mikael Akerfeldt's blackened growl on that album but once the taste had been acquired the quest for more Opeth continued at a fast pace. I quickly counted them among my favorite bands, devouring everything from their masterpiece My Arms, Your Hearse (my current favorite) to the growl-free folk/fusion/prog outing of Damnation with relish. Opeth also introduced me to another future staple, the excellent neo-prog band Porcupine Tree fronted by producer/musician/songwriter Steven Wilson who had contributed both instrumentation and production to several Opeth albums. Without getting too sycophantic, I can honestly say that I owe a lot of my omnivorous musical perspective and tastes to Opeth.

Now with all this goodwill in mind, let me tell you why Heritage is an album best left on the shelf.

The biggest controversy over this album is the complete rejection of any and all metal elements. Akerfeldt is on record stating that death metal is "over" and reflecting a disdain in being pigeonholed as such. That's both fair and not unexpected, as the band's classical prog influences were always just as prominent in their work as the metal ones were and previous effort Watershed generally pushed full-on headbanging aggression to the back burner (save for "Heir Apparent," the only all-metal song they've released to date). The band has also seen a number of lineup changes since signing up to the Roadrunner label in 2005, such as the inclusion of a full-time keyboardist (Per Wilberg, who left the band right after Heritage) and the departure of long-time members Peter Lindgren and Martin Lopez who both contributed a lot to the band's overall sound, if not to its songwriting. They have since been replaced by Martin Axenrot and Fredrik Akesson on drums and guitar respectively, who while not untalented seem slightly less subtle in their playing and overall feel than their predecessors.

But ultimately these surface changes are relatively unimportant to Heritage. What does matter, however, is how fucking boring the result is.

It's not that the music is overtly bad. The band is playing more or less up to par, channeling the odd meters, wild syncopation and organ blasts of prime '70s prog heroes such as Mk I-IV King Crimson and Van Der Graaf Generator perfectly on pre-release "The Devil's Orchard" and "Nepenthe." The medieval melodies of "Folklore" could pass for Gentle Giant or early Genesis , and there's mellotron all over the place on the moodier "I Feel The Dark." The bizzare, psychedelic "Famine" drops in some exotic instrumentation, including Afro-Cuban flavored percussion from Weather Report alumnus Alex Acuna and even a goddamn flute solo that gave me very unwelcome Jethro Tull flashbacks. All this coupled to a warm production quality with deliciously smooth low-end worlds away from the common sterile and overcompressed digital sound of new releases lends this album a very retro, analog feel.

That's the problem, really--Heritage rarely rises above more than mere homage to Mikael's musical idols, and even when that vision is executed competently it has little else to say. At best, this could be the work of an anonymous neo-prog band; and at worst, like in "Famine" and "Nepenthe" it feels like a disjointed jam session. The only track that I find entirely successful and not a stale rehash is "The Lines In My Hand": a surprisingly concise, driving and well-executed song that comes in a tidy 3:48, features some nice Spanish guitar alongside great throbbing basslines and would've made a superb single if Opeth was inclined to do such plebeian things. Most of the old transitions and shading, Opeth's biggest selling point, are gone and in its place is a steady undynamic flatline. They try to hide this fault with eclecticism and snazzier playing, but after listening to something as passionately stormy and foreboding as "Demon of The Fall," "Moonlapse Vertigo," or "By the Pain I See in Others" it becomes glaringly obvious.

Then there are the lyrics, which have notably degraded as Mikael's voice has gotten ever better. Since Ghost Reveries I'd noticed an uptick in their use of explicit Satanic references, a rather silly device that they never really resorted to in past albums. Most of that is fortunately gone in Heritage, but some truly hackneyed lines remain. Hearing Mikael drop clunkers like "God is dead!" in the chorus of "The Devil's Orchard" or "Feel the pain in your brain, insane" on "Folklore" in that newly scrubbed angelic intonation is just cringeworthy. It makes you wish for a dose of that insidious and darkly majestic growl to purge it from memory.

The saddest thing is that Opeth has already released a far, far superior prog album that's over seven years old and still sounds like Opeth--that album would be Damnation, and for all the spontaneous menstruation that release produced within the metalhead fraternity it remains a more emotive and convincing listen that anything Heritage has to offer. So while ultimately I respect Akerfeldt's vision and what he was trying to do here, if this is the vein that Mikael wants to pursue he needn't have dragged the name of his current band into it. Go start that joint Steven Wilson project I'm sure you've been waiting to do forever Mikael--maybe you'll stir ol' Steve out of his post-The Incident malaise. Or, y'know, fold Opeth and go solo like many brave metal vocalists that have gone before, abandoning the old expectations entirely.

But Heritage, from the doofy cover art (seriously, look at it) to the light and inconsequential music, remains one thing my inner fanboy wishes I'd never have to call an Opeth album--a misfire.

-SJ

Dir en Grey- Dum Spiro Spero

August 3, 2011; Firewall/The End
http://www.direngrey.co.jp/english/e-information.html

Dir en Grey are a hard lot to pigeonhole. Formerly one of the establishing bands of the visual kei scene in Japan, a subgenre defined by flamboyant (some would say downright fruity) dress as much as the distinctly Japanese mishmash of post-hardcore, goth balladry and metal most of those largely mediocre bands play, Dir en Grey have since expanded to Western shores and have gradually evolved into something distinctly different and far better. They are often unfairly shoved into the Hot Topic/nu-metal/metalcore ghetto for their dramatic (at times bordering on overwrought) and bleak lyrical imagery and videos, or more recently dubbed as pandering sellouts by many of the fickle J-fetishists who originally popularized them here for their more metallic stylings starting with the 2003 album Vulgar.

All this static aside, Dir en Grey are unusually popular for a foreign-language band in the U.S., and they make pretty damn good albums to support that popularity. Dum Spiro Spero is one of them, continuing the development into transcendent sonic juggernaut began by its predecessor Uroboros while possessing its own darker, thornier and more complex nature.

From the eerie minor-key piano and disturbingly hellish distortion of intro "Kyoukotsu no Nari," a direct antipode of Uroboros' "Sa Bir," this intention is announced pretty early on--and then it launches into "The Blossoming Beezlebub," which sounds like nothing else prior from this band. Superhuman frontman Kyo displays the full extent of his vocal range here, from choir-like, barely lucid chants to a freakish shriek and strangled moans over dark, sinuous guitar melodies courtesy of adept duo Kaoru and Die, all rendered with a washed-out, nightmarish mix. It feels far shorter than a seven-minute song has any right to.

I was initially somewhat disappointed with following track and single "Different Sense"--it begins much like a fairly average deathcore song, right down to Kyo's new deep gurgling vox, blastbeats, and even full-blown guitar hero solos (a first for this band)--yet by the middle it has evolved into a "typical" Dir en Grey sound, with the powerful soaring vocals fans have come to expect. It breaks interesting new territory for the band, even if it seems a little derivative on first blush. Both "Juuyoku" and ""Yokusou ni Dreambox" Aruiwa Seijuku no Rinen to Tsumetai Ame" (don't ask me to translate that) are more successful, the latter a miasma of churning midpaced sections punctuated by eccentric thrashing breaks with Kyo once again going fucking nuts. Anyone that can draw frequent comparisons to Mike Patton is doing something very right. "Lotus," the other major single, is a traditional Dir en Grey ballad filtered through their latter-day sophistication--among the best they've done in that style, and one of the few tracks on here that clearly falls into such easy labeling.

Then there is "Diabolos," the token schizo epic in the vein of the previous album's "Vinushka" or Macabre's title track (still one of the best things they've ever done), and while it's a strong track I don't think it quite makes it to that esteemed level. It isn't formulaic by any means, but other than a few new vocal turns and a beautiful, shimmering section close to the end it doesn't feel especially innovative. Still even an "average" DEG epic shits on most bands, and "Diabolos" hardly impairs the momentum of the album. After a few quicker, thrashing numbers that somewhat blend together, the last two tracks end Dum Spiro Spero very strongly--the somber and gorgeous "Vanitas," and "Ruten no Tou" which effortlessly blends soaring choruses, creeping verses, some blasting sections and a stunning outro in a way that makes it more representative than anything else on the album and would've made the most logical single in my estimation.

Bottom line, Dum Spiro Spero is another solid entry in DEG's growing oeuvre, and if it falls short of the excellent Uroboros in accessibility and standout tracks, its uniquely murky and cryptic ambience and full embrace of metal influences combined with the darker, heavier feel of earlier albums like Vulgar and Marrow of A Bone make it an inevitable grower and show that the band is committed to the experimental path they've forged for themselves. At this rate their future material promises to be something to behold, and here's to hoping that next time it doesn't take three goddamn years to drop.

-SJ

The Twenty Best Hip-Hop Albums of The '90s: A Retrospective

So it's been a crazy ass summer for all involved at SB, and we return from a month and a half long hiatus with... a list, and not even taking aim at another publication's online poll-influenced pile of failure this time.

No, this time the reasons are somewhat more personal. I was asked recently by an online acquaintance as to why we have so little hip-hop represented here despite our general embrace of everything under the fucking Sun. After all it's not like we dislike the genre--we had several excellent entries in our Best of the '00s list, including Can Ox, El-P and Madvillain. It's just that as a collective we don't listen to a whole lot of it, particularly the more recent stuff which outside the depths of the underground (and even there, too) seems to be rather hit or miss in terms of overall quality. If someone can enlighten us as to what we're missing, some more records in the past eleven or twelve years that flew under our radar, I'm sure we'd give em a shot.

However as a jaded country kid that grew up in the '90s with indiscriminate tastes and rediscovered just how awesome that decade was for hip-hop about eight years after the fact, this list was a long time coming; and even though I'm enabling this blog's addiction with putting things in a numbered sequence (".... hi, my name is Chris, and I'm a listaholic") I also hope to raise awareness for some fucking prime rap here, even if the selections are somewhat obvious to more educated heads.

Before I get started, some biases are freely admitted in the form of, you guessed it, another goddamn list:

a) I'm an East Coast kid, always have been.

b) As such, G-Funk is generally not my preferred production style.

c) I'm basing my selections on release date, not the timeframe in which they were recorded, so a couple albums here may be questionable as representative of the '90s.

d) I'm 27, white, and male.

e) I hold no particular reverence for '80s rap as a whole. Sure, I will rock your copies of Paid In Full, Nation of Millions, Critical Beatdown and even Paul's Boutique (see d) all day and all night, but the backpacker fetishizing of that era and putting down most '90s rap as "gangsta shit without a message" is kinda perplexing to me. You don't have to identify with or like the subject matter to see the genius involved in any of these albums and besides, most of those '80s records were hardly wholesome and/or conscious even by today's standards. A play of any Slick Rick or Kool G Rap will set you straight on that.

f) Eminem can shampoo my area.

Anyway, without further ado:

20. Company Flow- Funcrusher Plus (Rawkus Records, July 28, 1997)

"Independent as fuck"--rapper Bigg Jus, DJ Mr. Len and producer/MC El-Producto lived and died by this credo, and Funcrusher Plus reflects their cutting-edge ethos both in production and topic matter. Serving up a dramatically different slice of hip-hop from their contemporaries on the Rawkus label (whom they later had a catastrophic falling out with), Company Flow dealt in sinister paranoia and bleak dystopian imagery, along with shout outs to graffiti artists and intense battle raps all backed by the futuristic beats of El-P establishing the group at the top of the underground game. "8 Steps to Perfection," "The Fire In Which You Burn" and "Krazy Kings" all set a high standard for the strains of indie rap that would follow Co Flow's example, and El-P himself would go on to establish the excellent Definitive Jux label and push the bounds of hip-hop production even further.

19. The Pharcyde- Bizarre Ride II The Pharcyde (Delicious Vinyl, November 24, 1992)


One of the few West Coast groups of the era that didn't embrace the gangsta image, Pharcyde's classic debut places them in the same league as their East Coast counterparts De La Soul as court jesters of hip-hop. Slimkid, Imani, Bootie Brown and Fatlip sound like the four smartass kids you probably knew back in high school, trading in gleefully obnoxious, hilarious rhymes and playing the dozens with each other on "Ya Mama." However there's introspection here too, with "Passing Me By" and "On The DL" sincerely revealing self-effacing aspects of their personal lives that most rappers would never dream of doing. But positivity is largely the order of the day here and J-Swift's bouncy production only adds to the street corner vibe.

18. The Roots- Things Fall Apart (MCA, February 23, 1999)
Philly's resident hip-hop/neo soul band expanded from hometown heroes to a movement with their fourth album Things Fall Apart, with appearances from Common, Erykah Badu, Mos Def, Dice Raw and beatbox extraordinaire Scratch. Yet even with all the collaborators the album generally avoids feeling busy or top-heavy, with the live grooves of drummer ?uestlove underpinning the impressive wordplay and rhymes of Black Thought and Malik B. still being the central focus. The Grammy-winning "You Got Me" is one of hip-hop's few truly touching love songs, but head-spinning raps on "Double Trouble," "Step Into The Realm," "Adrenaline" and "Ain't Sayin' Nothin' New" prove that they haven't gotten too soft. Although Things Fall Apart has a fair amount of padding (including the obligatory middling spoken-word track), the album's highlights easily outweigh the cheese and live up to its reputation as the release that broke The Roots into the big time.

17. Jay Z- Reasonable Doubt (Roc-A-Fella, June 25, 1996)


Hova was always the consummate businessman and slick purveyor of mafioso rap even before the days he became a mogul, and his debut Reasonable Doubt reminds us of a time when he was hungry and rising to the top. Jay reflects back on both the good and bad times of criminal living with "Can't Knock The Hustle," "D'Evils," "Regrets" and "Dead Presidents II," while the Biggie-featuring "Brooklyn's Finest" and blistering "22 Two's" (my favorite on the album) prove that he was no slouch with a mic. With a slate of producers including Ski, Clark Kent and DJ Premier supplying excellent R&B and jazz-flavored production, this is Jay at both his most consistent and most musical, and the album everyone inevitably gravitates back to after listening to his less satisfying subsequent efforts.

16. Mobb Deep- The Infamous (Loud/RCA/BMG Records, April 25, 1995)
Unrepentantly brutal and nihilistic even by the standards of '90s gangsta rap, Havoc and Prodigy would have made it into the annals of hip-hop legend for only one track--the haunting "Shook Ones, Part II," the power of which needs little explanation. Even without that track, the rest of The Infamous lyrically paints grim pictures of an urban war zone, where no allegiances can be trusted and any day could be the one you're staring down a barrel of an enemy's nine. The Queensbridge duo make absolutely no apologies for their anti-life stances, and "Drink Away The Pain (Situations)" produced by and featuring a verse by Q-Tip may be the lightest they ever get. Not for weak stomachs, but unrelenting and masterful in its dark focus.

15. Common Sense- Resurrection (Relativity, October 25, 1994)


Common in the days before he dropped the Sense from his name and before he was tainted by lame neo-soul posturing and show business was Chi-Town's finest rapper, a thinking man's MC that preferred witty double entendre and metaphor through his smooth, sometimes half-sung delivery. "I Used to Love H.E.R.," an allegory of hip-hop's life from its humble beginnings through the Golden Age and the gangsta era is still one of the most widely admired and quoted tracks in all of hip-hop, and No I.D.'s piano-heavy gorgeous production on Resurrection lends a soulful vibe throughout. Even at the age of 22 Common had a maturity beyond his years, eschewing the usual hardcore posturing of the era for rap that attains the ideal of street poetry on a higher level than most of his contemporaries.

14. Big Punisher- Capital Punishment (Terror Squad/Loud Records, April 28, 1998)


Ok, so Capital Punishment suffers a bit from being skit-heavy and the production, despite a few hot beats dropped by big names like RZA and Dr. Dre, is more accomplished than impressive. But once the mightly Pun (R.I.P.), all 400+ pounds of him latched onto that beat, it was fucking over. Just listen to "Super Lyrical" (guest Black Thought of all people gets totally upstaged here), "Beware," "Deep Cover '98" and "The Dream Shatterer" where Big Pun's Bronx-bred, lightning fast battle rapping makes everyone else just sound lazy and sloppy. And when he turns his machine gun delivery down to suit slower club jams like "I'm Not A Player" ("... I just fuck a lot"), his humor and choice of phrase still comes through. With his Terror Squad mates and other guests like Wyclef, Inspectah Deck and Prodigy on board and all dropping in fine performances, this is one of the best Latino rap albums ever and a lyricist's treat.

13. Pete Rock & C.L. Smooth- Mecca and the Soul Brother (Elektra, June 9, 1992)


While their works were widely slept on by listeners at the time, the Mount Vernon NY duo of producer wunderkind Pete Rock and silky MC C.L. Smooth were dropping brilliant jazz/soul raps that were philosophical without being particularly Afrocentric, and street without being thug (C.L. had a early Rakim-esque aversion to profanity). Mecca and the Soul Brother was the best embodiment of their style, embarking on sixteen 4-6 minute bangers that never wear out their welcome, and what it lacks in distinct highlights (barring the soulful dirge and future genre staple "They Reminisce Over You (T.R.O.Y)") it makes up for in workmanlike consistency. There's not a single bad song or wack skit to be had, making this mandatory for fans of late Golden Age rap.

12. Cypress Hill- self titled (Ruffhouse/Columbia/SME Records, August 13, 1991)


Though they would later become West Coast hip-hop's resident Latino stoners, Cypress Hill's revolutionary debut is the only time they've managed to be hardcore and hilarious simultaneously. Bear witness to B-Real's adenoidal flow over the skronky guitar noise of "How I Could Just Kill A Man" and "Pigs" or the abrasive bump of "Hand On The Pump" which inspired hordes of copycats, while other tracks extolled the virtues of the good leaf with the deeply addled thump of "Stoned Is The Way of The Walk" and the more uptempo "Light Another" being highlights. It may sound a little dated now but Cypress Hill's debut still bangs with the best of them, and laid down a template for many West Coast groups to follow.

11. Outkast- Aquemini (LaFace/Arista, September 29, 1998)


As one of the founders of a nascent Southern hip-hop scene in the '90s, the duo of Andre and Big Boi brought something new and fresh to the table with their distinct ATL drawls, deep strains of instrumental blues, funk, reggae and soul meeting up in a huge melting pot and general rejection of the usual flossin' and shallow materialism that was legion among groups at the time. And with the third album Aquemini, they went from being regional heroes to one of the best groups in the country. While Outkast are no doubt nice with a mic and bring rhymes loaded with content and substance, they're less about the lyrics and more about verbally complementing the big, Southern fried grooves and varied beats as showcased perfectly by bangers "Rosa Parks" and "Skew It on The Bar-B." Along with the seven-minute slow funk centerpiece "SpottieOttieDopaliscious" and loud, wah-wah guitar heavy "Chonkyfire," Aquemini's earthy musical backdrop could speak for itself. Damn is this record beautiful.

10. Public Enemy- Fear of A Black Planet (Def Jam/Columbia, April 10, 1990)


After dropping one of the greatest hip-hop albums of all time in It Takes A Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back, Chuck D, Flavor Flav & Co. would suffer a long slide into irrelevance throughout the following decade as gangsta rap groups won acceptance over more socially conscious artists in the mainstream. But in 1990, P.E. were still at the top of the rap game and so was Fear of A Black Planet.

An angry, impassioned cry against racial inequality and the critics that began to take more shots at them after Minister of Information Professor Griff's antisemitic statements to the press, Fear of A Black Planet blasted myriad cultural enemies both new and old while cranking up the Bomb Squad's dissonant wall of sample-heavy noise to 11. Miscegenation (the title track, "Pollywanacracka"), Hollywood ("Burn Hollywood Burn"), record labels ("Who Stole The Soul?"), the media ("Welcome to the Terrordome") and even Elvis ("Fight The Power") all get hit by lyrical broadsides from Chuck, while Flav drops his most enduring track "9-1-1 Is A Joke" taking a lighter-hearted shot at the lack of police support in black neighborhoods. Amid the rage are calls for black unity like "Brothers Gonna Work It Out" and an urge to stop communities from cannibalizing themselves, making this a protest album that seeks to empower a staid and despondent black America as much as it targets the white status quo.

Unfortunately P.E. would never be this vital again, what with Flav clowning on reality shows and a lack of musical inspiration from the group they've become all but a pop culture joke in recent years. However albums like It Takes A Nation and Fear of A Black Planet make that reputation completely unwarranted and still sound visionary, urgent and powerful--the aural equivalent of a clenched, raised fist.

9. Ice Cube- Death Certificate (Priority/EMI Records, October 29, 1991)


Long before Ice Cube started showing up in cuddly family flicks like Are We There Yet?, he was one hostile motherfucker. Dropped less than a year prior to the Rodney King riots that ripped through L.A., Death Certificate is gangsta rap at both its most conscious and its angriest. Formerly the soul and brains of NWA, Cube's first two solo albums took on issues of race, poverty and government disenfranchisement from a street level perspective, facing down the white establishment with a uncompromising gaze. Switching from the hard beats of the Bomb Squad on Amerikkka's Most Wanted to a more West Coast-oriented, funk-intensive production, Death Certificate still loses absolutely nothing in terms of intensity or skill behind the mic.

The album is split into two sides--starting with the Death side, according to Cube a mirror image of where the black community was (and still is) and discussing inequality and depravity's ravages on the inner city, culminating in "Alive In Arrival," Cube narrating the story of a young man caught in a gang shootout and bleeding out in a hospital bed while being questioned by police. The Life side, "a vision of where we need to go," focuses on the racism of institutions ranging from the U.S. military to Korean shopkeepers and curing the black community through violent self-empowerment. And it's all capped with a scathing hit piece on NWA, "No Vaseline."

The source of much controversy upon release for its racial politics and brutal rejection of White America's social mores, Death Certificate is as pissed off as any punk or metal album and more focused than even Fear of a Black Planet, and whether you agree with Cube's fury or not it's hard to argue with the album's relevance as its targets persist even twenty years on.

8. Mos Def & Talib Kweli Are Black Star (Rawkus/Priority/EMI Records, August 26, 1998)


Named after Marcus Garvey's Black Star shipping line founded to repatriate blacks to Africa, seasoned conscious rappers Mos Def and Talib Kweli created a real milestone together--behold, an Afrocentric album that isn't preachy, isn't overly PC or corny (the love jam "Brown Skin Lady" being a possible if well-intentioned exception), isn't trying to scare white people away, and is fully in touch with the basics of rap and sharp performances behind the mic that keep this far away from boring radio fodder. It's the perfect happy medium.

A huge celebration of hip-hop and black culture as a whole, Mos and Talib draw from two decades of the genre, from the early B-boy days to the East v. West feud and life in the streets of Brooklyn circa '99 for their observations, taking on the deaths of Biggie and 2Pac in the Boogie Down Productions-referencing "Definition," and the anti-culture of nihilism and conspicuous consumption in "Thieves In The Night" (still one of hip-hop's most eloquent and incisive tracks) along with a funny and smart Mos remake of Slick Rick's classic joint "Children's Story."

Of course this wouldn't be a Mos/Talib venture without some fiery spitting, and there's plenty on "Re: Definition," "Hater Players" and posse cut "Twice Inna Lifetime" with awesome guest verses by Wordsworth and Jane Doe along with Common on "Respiration" adding to the wealth of lyricism on the album. Add catchy-ass beats from producers Hi-Tek, J. Rawls and 88 Keys and you have a pre-millennial classic. We're overdue for a reunion.

7. Raekwon- Only Built 4 Cuban Linx (Loud/RCA/BMG, August 1, 1995)


The first run of Wu solo albums was a watershed in hip-hop with RZA's stint in Gravediggaz and Ol' Dirty Bastard, Method Man and Ghostface all dropping classics. But only two releases enjoyed full RZA supervision behind the boards and rose to the level of masterpieces. Raekwon's Only Built 4 Cuban Linx was the first half of the pair, with Rae's intricate criminal narratives and Five Percenter knowledge accompanied by Ghostface Killah's stream of consciousness rapping and RZA's backdrop giving a big injection of life to the dying mafioso rap subgenre.

A loose concept album, Only Built 4 Cuban Linx is the tale of two gangsters returning to the drug game to make a quarter mil and get out before it kills them, and finding out it ain't so easy. Inspired by stellar source material like Once Upon A Time In America and John Woo's The Killer, "Incarcerated Scarfaces," "Gullotine (Swordz)," "Criminology," "Rainy Dayz" and "Heaven & Hell" feel like immaculately produced scenes from a crime film, and lighter cuts like "Ice Cream" and "Wu-Gambinos" (which started the group's trend of aliases) threw in defining performances from Method, Masta Killa and Cappadonna. Even Nas shows up and drops an epic verse on "Verbal Intercourse," which heads still often call his best performance on record. Ending with the closing credits roll of Popa Wu's "North Star," it all rounds up to one of the most complete experiences in hip-hop.

Yep, it's a Wu masterpiece, rivaled only by one other.

6. GZA- Liquid Swords (Geffen/MCA Records, November 7, 1995)
It's one of the hardest hip-hop debates of all time--Liquid Swords v. Only Built 4 Cuban Linx--and much ink has been spilled over the topic trying to figure out which of the two RZA-produced efforts is better. Here's my take: Raekwon's is a classic and undisputably equal to Liquid Swords in rapping and production, but GZA's has it all over Cuban Linx in one important category: Atmosphere.

This is by far the most consistently dark, somber album on the list and that quality along with The Genius' dominance on the mic makes it the perfect kingpin album, his thick Brooklyn baritone building elaborate and carefully constructed metaphors and tales of fucked up deals over icy strings and grim bass--all linked together by excerpts from Shogun Assassin. Even the other Clan members that show up seem completely attuned and sympathetic to the wavelength GZA and RZA are on, with Inspectah Deck's narrative verses on "Duel of the Iron Mic" and aptly titled "Cold World"; Ghostface's blast of free associating and religious imagery on "Investigative Reports" and "4th Chamber"; and Method Man's effortless boast-laden roll through "Shadowboxing."

In typical early Wu fashion, this is more of a group rallying around one member (and RZA) rather than a true solo effort, and yet GZA manages to put his own indelible stamp on the proceedings with tracks like "Labels," a vicious dissection of the record industry widely admired and imitated to this day (sample lyric: "TOMMY ain't my motherfuckin' BOY/When he fake moves on a nigga you employ/Well I'll EMIrge off ya set, now ya know God damn/I show LIVIN LARGE niggaz how to flip a DEF JAM"). For all the spectacular performances on here, there's no doubt Liquid Swords is GZA's show as the sharpest lyrical sword in the Clan.

5. Big L- Lifestylez ov da Poor & Dangerous (Columbia, March 28, 1995)
Big L is that "other Big" from NYC that seemed to get a lot less recognition outside serious hip-hop circles, and that's a damn shame as Lamont Coleman was easily one of the finest mic technicians in his generation, gifted with a cutting multisyllabic flow that runs circles around most rappers to this day. His unparalleled skills and nearly relentless barrage of over-the-top imagery lent him more to the world of hardcore battle rap than the relatively mellower (but just as violent) gangsta material of the day, which probably accounts for his profile under the mainstream radar.

One thing is certain, though: Big L is the undisputed master of punchlines, and he drops a treasure trove of them hilarious and hard hitting all over Lifestylez ov da Poor & Dangerous. "So don't step to this, cause I got a live crew/You might be kinda big but they make coffins yo' size too" ("All Black"); "My rap's steady slammin, I keep a heavy cannon/It's a new sherriff in town, and it ain't Reggie Hammond" ("Put It On"); "I'm looking nothing like your poppa/I wouldn't give a chick 10 cent to put cheese on a whoppa" ("No Endz No Skinz")--it goes on and on and on. But L wasn't just bragaddocio and bluster, he also dropped the occasional conscious track like "Street Struck" and let his pretty talented friends get a turn--seven of them--on "8 Iz Enuff." Verse for verse, song for song, he was probably the finest MC going and Lord Finesse's lo-fi but solid beats make excellent wallpaper for L's unrivaled flow.

For all the horrorcore posturing L was a rapper, not a gangsta; which made his death from a shooting in 1999 right before he signed to Roc-A-Fella and dropped another album all the sadder. No doubt he should've been a household name. In any case, there may be better, more versatile hip-hop albums out there but I can think of precious few that speak to my musical sensibilities or that I've listened to more than Lifestylez, and that is high praise indeed.

4. Notorious B.I.G.- Ready to Die (Bad Boy, September 13, 1994)


Maybe it's just my personal regional slant talking, but what separated NYC gangsta rap of the era from its Western equivalent was a sense of doom and fatalist gravity amid the bullets, drugs and misogyny. 2Pac (for all his unquestionable talents) and other Death Row rappers made the outlaw life sound like an invincible and calculated pose, something you do to pass the time between fucking hoes and smoking weed, whereas Biggie could lace his quotably toxic rhymes with grim humor, world weary struggle, paranoia and even vulnerability--sometimes all in the same song. Even at his most vulgar and ridiculous, Biggie always sounded real. Like Hemingway, he wrote (and rapped) what he knew about.

And Ready to Die showed Biggie at his peak, narrating the life of a rising gangster from birth to suicidal death with cinematic and emotional breadth. Perhaps the only rapper that can lend full life to the thick-like-molasses, sample heavy production by Easy Mo Bee and Sean Combs (ugh) Biggie flexes his lyrical ability, preferring a clear yet complex storytelling style over the rapid flows of most of his contemporaries in the East. All the better to lay down threatening yet hilarious lines like "There gonna be a lot of slow singin' and flower bringin' if my burglar alarm start ringin" in that rough baritone. Biggie is probably the most bit-on MC of all time, and it's not hard to figure out why. Anyone who can sum up twenty years of social decay and the crack epidemic with one track, "Things Done Changed" ("Back in the days our parents used to take care of us/Look at em now, they even fuckin' scared of us!") without turning preachy is truly next level. A cameo by Method Man on "The What" is just icing.

It's too bad his second album Life After Death went fully down the overproduced, more radio-friendly road this album hinted at with tracks like "Juicy," because there was definitely more life in Ready to Die's rawer, bleaker vein. It makes you wonder how much better Biggie would've been without Puff Daddy. Either way the death of Christopher Wallace in '97 was truly a loss and even the necrophiliac post-mortem releases do nothing to change Ready To Die's nearly flawless depiction of a hustler's struggle.

3. A Tribe Called Quest- The Low End Theory (Jive, September 24, 1991)
You knew you were going to see this one eventually.

Exemplars of the Native Tongues school of hip-hop, Q-Tip/The Abstract, Phife Dawg and producer/DJ Ali Shaheed Mohammed weren't militant like Brand Nubian, weren't goofy like De La Soul and weren't hippies like Digable Planets or Arrested Development. What they were was better than all of them put together, combining low-key consciousness with a skeletal but thumpin' production designed to move rumps and none of their albums embodied that ideal better than The Low End Theory. Spread across fourteen tracks of buttery flow, witty and smart yet not preachy lyricism and an aura of pure class is a feeling of effortless accomplishment and expertise that belies that the group was only on their second album.

Marry this honed sense of purpose to slick jazzified beats and thick basslines sported by the likes of "Jazz (We Got The)," "Excursions," "Check The Rhime" and "Verses from The Abstract" and you have perfection. And even the guest appearances on "Show Business" (Brand Nubian) and the classic closer "Scenario" (Leaders of the New School) are highlights, including a hot verse from a young Busta Rhymes on the latter. One of the best things that can be said about The Low End Theory is that it's an all-purpose album with a universal appeal that will hook the most casual of hip-hop heads, and even people who otherwise spell rap with a "c." It's the Kind of Blue of its genre, and there are few compliments higher than that.

2. The Wu-Tang Clan- Enter the 36 Chambers (Loud, November 9, 1993)


You're staring at the genesis of one of hip-hop's most enduring and idolized franchises; at LEAST ten solo careers and Christ knows how many other affiliates; an entire school of rapping and production; many additions to the hip hop lexicon; and even a clothing line. When you listen to Enter the 36 Chambers it's like an audio time capsule from an older world--a world caught sleeping by nine hungry young men, each a deft MC in his own right, forming like Voltron and stomping their way out of Shaolin with their comic book aliases, crack stash and martial arts flicks in tow.

This album has close to zero emotional range from raucous and blustering (the cautionary tale "Tears" probably being the only exception) with almost every line either about the drug game, Five Percenter references, barely veiled threats of violence or hardcore braggadocio, and the low budget production values make this one of the rawest hip-hop albums ever to hit platinum. And herein lies its charm, as later outings as a group of seasoned professionals from Wu-Tang Forever onward haven't hit anywhere near as hard nor as consistently.

Excerpts of radio interviews with the group and violent street chatter along with scattered kung-fu and gritty soul samples paired to the hard thump of Clan leader RZA's landmark beatcrafting all tell of a ruthlessness and ambition that far outstrips its status as a debut. And the voices over this background, from Ol' Dirty Bastard's cracked-out soul man to Raekwon, Inspectah Deck and Ghostface's distinct and technical flows to Method Man's hazy drawl and GZA's calculating master delivery, peel off verse after shouted verse in their own indomitable fashion. Even U-God and Masta Killa's brief appearances on "The Mystery of Chessboxin" are lethal. For pure verbal dexterity and rugged street vibe along with that indescribable Clan X-factor, influence on the genre and even humor, this album still ain't nothin to fuck wit after nearly twenty years.

1. Nas- Illmatic (Columbia, April 19, 1994)


When Nasir Jones dropped his debut, he was barely in his twenties and was already being hailed as both a prodigy on a level with Rakim and the savior of the flagging Queensbridge, NY scene. He managed to net what is to this day a dream team of producers--DJ Premier, Pete Rock, Q-Tip, Large Professor--supplying their finest beats and the result was a 10-track paradigm shift in the foundations of hip-hop.

There are so many things fucking remarkable about this album--how it synthesizes hardcore street rap with the conscious lyricism of alternative rap, both aware of the harsh realities and tragedy of crime and the projects on half of the album and then finding a fatalistic optimism with "The World Is Yours" and "Memory Lane" without seeming contradictory at all. How lean the album as a whole is--an intro, nine songs, only one guest rapper (the sorely underrated AZ on "Life's A Bitch"), no skits or filler whatsoever. The whole of "One Love"--a shoutout to locked up comrade Cormega and others wrapped up in a slick tale of age and experience meeting prison-bound youth, anchored by Q-Tip's smooth vocal hook and a plinking beat. How Nas' kaleidoscopic lyricism and razor-tongued flow almost singlehandly forced everyone in the industry to step up their game from the moment "It Ain't Hard to Tell" dropped. The overall vibrancy and love of hip-hop and the streets that bred it that still resonates over a decade after its release. Even the widely copied, iconic cover art (look at #4 and tell me you don't see a resemblance--Raekwon did). Hell there's an entire catalog of lesser classics, even on this list, that sample lines from this album. If you were a fan of hip-hop in '95, you were a fan of Illmatic.

The fact that Nas' consistency as a rapper fell while his star rose doesn't even seem to matter. There is still only one Illmatic and that's more than anyone else has.

-SJ

A Token of My Extreme: Dälek- Absence (2004)

Ipecac Recordings; September 7, 2004
http://www.deadverse.com/

It may seem hard to believe these days, but hip-hop at its roots is a very experimental artform that flirted with the avant garde pretty early on. Proto-rappers The Last Poets had both controversial Afrocentric perspectives and strong jazz inclinations. Afrika Bambataa's "Planet Rock" was built on a sample from German electro-pioneers Kraftwerk. The Bomb Squad production of Public Enemy's greatest records owes just as much to skronking, astringent horn and sax squeals as it does to funk and rock rhythms. The Beastie Boys opus Paul's Boutique had a kaleidoscopic, pop culture-mashing production courtesy of the Dust Brothers that was postmodern almost before such a thing existed. Most Native Tongues-era groups heavily used jazz and house elements in their palette. Even as late as the early to mid '90s, producers like RZA and Prince Paul were finding clever uses for dissonant textures that took nothing away from their ability to create straight bangers.

And then the gangsta rap revolution and East/West rivalry boomed along with the rise of the Dirty South and mainstream rap settled into a sort of general stagnation, chained to too-smooth G-Funk and the outright lazy sampling of Puff Daddy/Diddy/whatever the fuck that shiny suit calls himself now, followed by crunk, Swizz Beatz, hyphy, Neptunes and Kanye. At the risk of sounding like some idiot backpacker, nowadays finding a truly creative hip-hop album is a task akin to picking diamonds out of elephant shit. White-boy indie rap often isn't much better than its flossin' radio counterpart, what with its necrophilia of hip-hop's good ol' days in lieu of anything original, or deliberate obscurity and wordiness to mask a lack of quality beats and energy.

From this middling and staid scene, Dalek (sorry, stupid keyboard won't let me make omlaut) is a NJ duo with music that rips the pretenders apart like a giant chainsaw. Lying in a strange no-mans-land between avant garde industrial, hip-hop and metal, they are probably one of the few (if not only) hip-hop groups that could get away with touring and even collaborating with the likes of Isis, Faust, The Melvins, and Godflesh without sounding entirely out of their depth. With MC dalek's intense Afro-conscious lyrics and very, very angry yet eloquent delivery plus Oktopus' devastating combination of traditional hip-hop drum and bass with what can only be described as Shoegaze From Hell, there hasn't been anything in the genre as urgent and bruising as Absence in a long time. This blows away even the similarly abrasive production jobs of underground god El-P, who is otherwise probably Dalek's closest sonic analogue. And yes they build that shit themselves--little to no sampling involved. Perfect for all the irrelevant rockist tards who love to dismiss the genre out of hand for its assumed "lack of musical talent."

The album begins with the six-minute fusillade "Distorted Prose," which rises from an impressive a capella intro (this guy can spit, no doubt) into a massive jet engine roar and later complemented by some thoroughly ill scratching from collaborator Still. It crashes to a shuddering stop and you're given a few precious seconds to catch your breath, a perfect summation of the overarching sonic violence barely contained throughout the album.

"Asylum (Permanent Underclass)" paints a brutally dystopic picture of blacks thrown to the wolves of American capitalism and the police state and unlike most similarly conscious hip-hop artists the backdrop matches the bleakness of its subject matter, with a pounding time change around the 3'30" mark. "Culture For Dollars" offers probably the catchiest chorus in the entire album ("Who trades culture for dollars?/The fool or the scholar/Griot, poet, or white collar?") and is one of the few tracks where Dalek's able rapping isn't nearly swallowed up by the oppressive din--probably the most accessible offering here along with the similar "Ever Somber." The title track's spacey interlude is followed by the tense and appropriately titled "A Beast Caged" and the nearly eight minute epic "In Midst of Struggle." The vicious clamor of "Eyes To Form Shadows" calls to mind a hip-hop Sonic Youth, dalek railing against walls of distortion and feedback between the wailing siren sonics that accompany the verses.

Absence is a focused, monolithic death machine, mostly for the better. Its only downside is that 57 minutes of grinding hip-hop colossus with not too much variation aside from the title track and similar instrumental "Koner" can get overwhelming, as can MC dalek's streams of agitprop--subtlety is not their strong suit here, and their later works are a bit better in this regard. But if you're reading this column I doubt you're looking for subtlety anyway. Bottom line, this is perfect hip-hop for jaded heads and adventurous metal/industrial lovers alike, and carries on the original pioneering spirit of the form without ever bending to B-boy anachronism (Jurassic 5, I'm looking at you).

Translation:

This album inhabits an interesting position, with enough hip-hop in it to not be immediately likeable by rap-metal dudebros (Rage Against The Machine this is not) or straight metalheads, while more mainstream oriented hip-hop heads might balk at the general aesthetic and rejection of conventions such as guest rappers and emphasis on voice. A healthy selection of Definitive Jux-related artists (El-P, Cannibal Ox, Mr Lif etc.) would probably be a good starting point for the uninitiated coming from the rap side.

It's also worth mentioning that the aggro-hop group Techno Animal (a collaboration with Godflesh/Jesu's Justin Broadrick) and their best album Brotherhood of The Bomb is very, very similar and definitely a good listen for anyone into this.

-SJ

A Token of My Extreme: The Residents- Third Reich 'N Roll (1976) & Eskimo (1979)

Ralph Records; February 1976, September 1979
http://www.myspace.com/theresidents

It could be argued that in a sense, The Residents aren't even a band so much as a bunch of like-minded weirdos. Their primary mission has always been Art with a capital A rather than just music per se. They don't have the chops of Zappa or the free jazz inclinations of Beefheart and others, or the po-mo genre salad approach of John Zorn or Mr. Bungle--hell to some listeners they barely qualify as musicians. Through their occasionally somewhat primitive methods and masked obnoxiousness, The Residents have always been about grand statements of oddity, proudly trumpeting the Theory of Obscurity--the less commercial, the better. They are self indulgent, and damn proud of it.

How self indulgent? Well, let's see--they made a recording in '74 appropriately titled Not Available that they locked away for almost five years, on purpose, with the concept that it would only be released after the members had forgotten about it. The group records under the moniker The Cryptic Corporation, and all of their live outings have been in costume (usually their classic eyeball masks)--to this day no one knows who the hell does what. The live shows themselves are chock full of insane props, multimedia showcases and elaborate stage production that would've made Peter Gabriel-era Genesis blush. Every single album they've realized since their official debut Meet The Residents (which almost got them sued by Capitol and EMI for the cover art) has been a conceptual work in some way or another. A three-sided album, forty tracks of one-minute mock ad jingles, a surrealist Elvis biography, live storytelling, suites about Bible characters? Yes to all of the above.

In light of all that the two albums featured here are probably the least strange entries in their oeuvre. All relative, of course.

The group's second release Third Reich N' Roll has one of the most iconic covers of all time--a young-ish Dick Clark in Nazi regalia holding a carrot, while crossdressing mini-Hitlers traipse all over the fluffy pink clouds behind him. The whole concept is a bit of silly musical Godwin, comparing the staid oldies of corporate radio to fascism but fuck, with a cover like that you have to wonder what's in store for the buyer of said vinyl. And this doesn't disappoint. Made up of two side-long suites ("Swastikas On Parade" and "Hitler Was A Vegetarian"), The Residents assembled covers of '60s and early '70s pop standards and then took a giant shit on them in the best possible way.

After a brief sample of the German-translated "Let's Twist Again" the album flies off into some kind of maniacal proto-industrial/punk/Krautrock/WTF concoction, the source material violated by a kitchen sink of toy instruments, garbled and bizarre vocals, evil minor-key synths and random sound effects to the point where they are only somewhat recognizable. Ever wanted to hear "A Horse With No Name" as a funeral march? It's here. A German version of "Papa's Got A Brand New Bag" with dying-animal trumpet bleats? Yup. "Yummy Yummy Yummy" warped into some Middle Eastern raga? Check. Also one of the weirdest versions of FM sacred cow "Light My Fire" you will ever hear, and a truly sublime mash-up of "Hey Jude/Sympathy For The Devil" that is a great payoff after almost forty minutes of total headfuck. On some versions of the album there's even a gloriously abrasive take on "(Can't Get No) Satisfaction" that predates the '77 punk boom by a year or so.

Eskimo might be even weirder, and sounds like nothing else they ever did. Here they abandon Western music signposts (or anything else really) and record forty minutes of tribal chants, synthesizers and the occasional homemade wind instrument in a tongue-in-cheek attempt to capture what Inuit life must've been like.

And despite the group's inherent goofiness--they couldn't resist inserting buried references to Coca-Cola and other things--they mostly succeed. Eskimo has a truly unsettling, cold and alien ambiance that no other artist or band could come close to, a couple decades of black metal and electronica recorded since then notwithstanding. Tracks like "The Walrus Hunt" and "The Angry Angakok" with their hypnotic gibberish chants along with the creepy sound effects could really wig a listener out under certain, uh, "conditions." At times Eskimo achieves an eerie splendor reminiscent of the better Brian Eno or Steven Roach albums, and the outro of "The Festival of Death" even manages to be sort of pretty, kind of an anomaly when it comes to The Residents but a nice retort to anyone who thinks they're just being weird and anti-musical for its own sake. And it all ends the same way it began--with the sound of freezing Arctic winds. You'd probably have to look to anthropological field recordings to get something more authentic, and even then it probably wouldn't be as subtly engrossing as this album.

Through their fifty year long career few groups have defined arty iconoclasm better than The Residents have, and while their embrace of kitsch may strike some listeners as a novelty their broad creative horizons place them in the same growing realms as other champions of the American avant-garde. Whether it's from the inspired amateurism of early period or their later adventures in the live medium, they truly embody forward-thinking artistry in an era where many pose as the real deal and fall way short.

Translation:

If you want to hear oldies spoofed in some truly twisted and sick ways Third Reich N' Roll comes pretty highly recommended, obviously. Fans of Krautrock (some parts I swear sound exactly like Can) and early industrial would probably really enjoy this as well.

Eskimo is a bit of a harder sell. Despite being highly regarded among Residents fans it's one of those "your mileage may vary" albums, especially if you haven't heard any of the more notable ambient artists (the aforementioned Eno and Roach, and others). Try some of that first and see if it grows on you before coming here.

-SJ