From his first dalliances with Daedelus, on through Dibiase, offkilter electronics are nothing new for Busdriver. But this is his most adventurous album since Temporary Forever. Things start off slow. Too slow, too minimal for their own good, some of the trademark absurdisms left hanging out to dry. But the backing builds to the task, with a lush, evocative buzz running through the middle sections, climaxing in Surrounded by Millionaire's harrying, offkilter screeches.
But then the album hits the skids, stumbles again and again, and mostly peters out (one exception, see below).
It's a wildly uneven album, but the stretching is exciting to stumble through.
This's also the first album where the previously-squeaky-clean Busdriver sounds really comfortable dropping F/N-bombs. No judgement on the endpoint, but he went through an uneasy period of transformation, and this feels like he's speaking from the heart again. He sounds serious. No grasping for hits, no hints of gimmick. And he sounds up to the task. It's strongest felt on the closing track, where Busdriver hits on some unusually plainspoken poignancy, a simple incision into the problems of the moment made personal.
Again, uneven on the whole, but I haven't been this eager to sift through his knotty rhymes in decades (decades!) 4/5
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