Friday, July 20, 2012

#531 Aesop Rock - Skelethon

I can never get into this guy.

On paper I should love the songs on this album: the rhyming is dense and complex and clever. But the gravelley, strained menacing delivery just. does. not. work. It sounds like a not-tough guy trying to sound tough, trying to be intense, trying to be menacing.

Two things I expect from rap: that it should sound effortless and that it should sound cool. This is neither; it smacks of effort. Which we all know isn't cool.

The production is rockist, but in a sludgy, unfun way, sub-El-P mock-scary.

This is rap in the trappings, but it just provides none of the things I look for in rap. Maybe it scratches some other itch for other people, being seen as a rap-oriented rock album or some genre-transcendent piece of experimentation, but I can't say I've found a way to cast this album, or any of this guy's output, that makes me eager to listen to it 2/5

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