The 10th album from New York's best rapper finds the rhymes flowing like malt liquor. Ten albums into your career, you are going to know how to write a song. He is quick to spit a collage of clever metaphors. You might have noticed we do not cover a great deal of hip-hop here. That's not because it's just not our thing; it's because the bar is held very high due to rappers like this. So, why accept inferior products being rolled off the assembly line of record labels looking to sedate people whose musical tastes reflect their low vibrational state? Here we are with the first song; the bass line gives more of a kick, being "Checkets". He continues to allow his verse to bob and weave around the beats. There is more of a hook to this chorus than the opening track, held.
He continues refusing to conform to dumbing things down for mainstream hip-hop audiences. "Movie Night" feels more like a freestyle over the disjointed funk organ track and jazz-tinged drum pattern. He is rapping about his pets on this one. When it comes to the sonic depth here, I prefer the more futuristic sound of "EWR" so far; it is the album's hardest bumping song. '1010WINS" has a mellower groove, that feels like walking the streets of New York in the summer while stoned as fuck. There is almost most of a 90s hip-hop feel to this album as many points of this mix remind me of 'Check Your Head".
With 18 tracks, this equates to a double album, so the levels of inspiration might vary, giving him room for experimentation that runs the spectrum from playing it perhaps to safe on "Send Help" to the jazzy spoken word feel of " John Something' that might find him going off on a tangent. He hits the bullseye with "Ice Sold Here. "Costco takes fewer chances with a more deliberate place, but it still works for what he does. "Bird School" rolls out a smoother take on funk that his voice works well over. The ambiguous world view of the lyrics is refreshing.
Magic is a recurring theme on this album. "Snail Zero" feels more like filler as it's not the album's strongest song, but with that said, it's still better than the hip-hop on the radio. He nails it harder for "Charlie Horse" as his words bounce off the beat. Even when the beat drones, it still feels pretty good, and his phrasing is always immaculate. The bass line adds to his vocal aggression on "Steel Wool," which finds him at peak MC. In some ways, "Black Plums" might sonically conform more to where hip-hop is at today, but it's jsut weird enough to keep him an outsider.
"Red Phone" has the dope beats you want from him, coupled with his charismatic mic magic. The chorus smacks, a perfect song. "Himalayan Yak Chew" has more ambiance than what this album has been bringing, the flow of the verses, anchoring the bong-coated bliss that smoothly floats along. It almost sounds more like Atmosphere. The last song is an ode to his hamster that escaped. It takes about a minute into this one before the lazy beat rolls in. I will give this one a 9.5, and see how it grows on me, seems like this is an album for the heavy smokers, Not the best album he has ever dropped, but that is a pretty high bar, but it is the best hip-hop album I've heard since the last Suicide Boys.
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