DJ Honda - H2 (8/10)

(nb! the album title is actually "HII" with the roman numericals but for the sake of clarity, I wrote it out as you would say it to not have it confused with an over-enthusiastic greeting)

"I ain't a blue collar worker, cause this thing called rhymin'

no different from coal mining.

We both on assignment to unearth the diamond.

When you start climbing and then I start shining.

You be stuggling and striving and they think you prime-timing.

Maintain and keep silence, make note and observation.

This confrontation, this is the daily operation."

from Travellin' Man ft Mos Def

The "DJ album" is a concept that seemingly died out and got replaced by pure excercises in turntablism. I don't hate on turntable records, but they mostly feel sort of naked to me- they're like the litteral opposite of a capella records but still missing something. For his second album, japanese DJ Honda, managed to assemble an incredibly impressive range of MC's to rap over his beats. For the most part, the featured rappers deliver solid bars but never outshine Honda's beats as the centerpiece of the album.

Honda's style of production and beat-making is funky and bouncy, mostly influenced by mid 90's east coast production but there's always a certain something eccentric about it that makes you recognize his signature sound. It could be a xylophone sample subtly hidden beneath an otherwise traditional horn loop or a slight distortion added on the bass line but they all serve for you to make the mental connection to him as the central artist even when the featured MC is killing it. Obviously not all the featured artists are great but that's sort of to be expected when you have one or more featured artists on every track

With the production so tight and the MC's mostly performing above average, the biggest downfall of the album, I feel, is Honda's lack of range musically; sure he can make a great sounding esoteric slash funky beat but the beats do end up sounding fairly generic towards the end and there's no doubt he was going through a severe case of xylophone-itis when producing this one.

Apart from that, the album is solid and a vast improvement over his self titled debut.

High point of the album: On the Mic ft. Cuban Link, Ju Ju, A.L. & Missin' Linx

Low point of the album: Blaze It Up ft. Black Attack

The Jam - All Mod Cons (9/10)

"Getting pissed at the annual office do.

Smart blue suit and you went to Cambridge too.

You miss page 3, but the Times is right for you.

And mum and dad are very proud of you, Mr. Clean"

from Mr. Clean

All Mod Cons is the Jam's third album release and represents, to me, how the band managed to reconnect with a successful concept and move forward with it after a disappointing follow-up to an amazing debut.

While The Jam came onto the scene in the late 70's, their sound is more reminiscent of the mid-to-late 60's mod groups than anything. Sure, they weren't unaffected by the rise of new wave and punk but the sound is definitely "moddish"- strong guitar riffs echo through the twelve 3-minute-songs. The guitar moves between soft and dreamy all the way up to hard and fast and sounds really good, while the bass and drums are both mixed to be surprisingly quiet; a shame, especially since the bass doesn't follow the guitar as closely as it often does in these older rock albums.

Much like classic mod acts, Weller's lyrics seem to take pride in discussing both politics and the mundane- on several songs he manages to do both. The general tone of the album is one about Great Brittain and the underlying social issues of that time- social issues that remain alarmingly relevant to this day.

High point of the album: Down In The Tube Station At Midnight

Low point of the album: It's Too Bad

Brother Ali - Mourning in America and Dreaming in Color (4/10)

"Sick of all this but can't take an off day.

Doctor's office, I can't swing the co pay.

Trapped in a network, lucky just to get work.

They celebrate every week, nobody gets hurt.

Greed could never leave well enough alone.

They keep on squeezing 'til we bleed from every bone.

And we'll strive hard and stress about the rent-

probably still die poor and in debt without a cent."

from Work Everyday

"Mourning in America etc" starts off Brother Ali's throaty voice over a beat so quiet you can hardly hear it. He talks about how he belives in America's ability to be "what it says it is" and laments the fact that I, the listener, would rather hear him rap about nonsense. I'm gonna be blunt here- I wouldn't. I would like to hear Brother Ali rap about anything other than his son, his ex wife and being a muslim. I imagine the political and financial state of America is a relevant subject to anyone in the world and would absolutely love to hear him rap about that and if he doesn't want to that's cool.

After two fairly boring tracks about nonsensical subjects, we get to the title track "Mourning in America" where Brother Ali takes the time to talk about the horrifying war campaigns of his country as well as the systematic incarceration of poor people to use as labor power. Unfortunately while the lyrics will occasionally touch on the topics he promised in the intro, the analysis is shallow and leaves the album little more than hooks and beats.

Brother Ali's writing is at best, I feel, when telling stories. He's never been much of a punchline rapper. The narrative of the album tends to just be about what's going on in his life, though, which I'm frankly not that interested in(I actually had to unfollow his fan page on facebook because it just took over my feed completely). The production, well, since he split with Ant(of Atmosphere fame) there's been a distinct drop-off in quality. That's not to say it's bad, it's not- just bland and uninspired. The beats could be a great backdrop for a hungrier MC, but not for someone who seems to have conceded making relevant music.

Overall, this is just another depressing release from Brother Ali, who I more and more fear will never release another relevant album like his debut "Shadows on the Sun".

High point of the album: Singing This Song

Low point of the album: Need A Knot

Non-Prophets - Hope (10/10)

"Ah, forget it; it's actually accepted for rappers to have no ethics.

Their albums would benefit if they put in half the effort.

I attended candlelight vigils for Matthew Sheppard

While you put out another 'fuck you, faggot'-record."

from That Ain't Right

While mimicing sounds of the past is certainly not rare in any genre- rock music has arguably been doing it for the last couple of decades, "Hope" was allegedly made in an effort to consciously sound like it came out in 1993. The early 90's represent a time when hip hop was on the cusp of going mainstream and the technology available to unsigned musicians was a limiting factor. As a result, albums from that era have a certain sound and feel to them where beats are blurry and simplistic, loops are short and drums all sound more or less like they were made on an 808(which they probably were).

While I can appreciate the effort to refer to the early 90's as a sort of "Golden Era" and wanting to revisit that place ten years later, I'm not sure whether or not producer Joe Beats and rapper Sage Francis' attempt was a successful one. The album is great, don't get me wrong- like really insane great, but it still comes off as way too complex in both production and lyrical delivery to have been made in -93.

Sage Francis lyrics impresses throughout the album, always complex but never overly so. Where most MC's seem to go for either message or delivery, Sage manages to shine in both departments and delivers thoughtful lyrics through the most advanced rhyme structures you'd have ever heard in -93. The lyrics deal mainly with hip hop as a culture, which is perfectly fitting for the artistic concept behind the album. Tongue in cheek jabs at other rappers, current political issues and old-fashioned boasting all appear as lyrical themes on the album, as well as some more unorthodox- the song "Disasters" being about children and more specifically artists making music about children("I've got a mouth to feed too, and it lives on my face/in a house that's see-through and it's your kid's mom's place/baby mama drama blah blah blah/I've got a problem but I'm not sitting on top of a barbarian chair/with rastafarian hair").

Sage's playful yet cynical lyrics are the biggest take-away from the album for sure, but the production is always top-notch as well; at times Joe Beats lays on the scratching a bit too much but the beats manage to sound good even when they're as simple as a bassline over a breakbeat and the minimalist style is perfectly executed on songs like "Any Port", "Fresh" and "New World Order".

There is no reason to not love this album.

High point of the album: Fresh

Low point of the album: The Cure

R.A. the Rugged Man - Die, Rugged Man, Die (9/10)

"VH1 would never do my behind the scenes,

cause it's way too explicit for your TV screens.

I'm like 'Can't we please talk about me a little more?

And why I don't sell out and I stay hardcore,

and why I never did a video for TVs,

and never bought a beat for more than 3 g's,

and never put an album out, not one year;

I don't give a fuck about my career!'

Yeah, people talk about me like they know my ass,

but where the fuck was you when I had no cash?

Oh wait, I forgot, I still don't got none.

But my album gon' blow up, if I ever drop one!"

from Dumb

Among the bigger mysteries of life is that no aspiring filmmaker had the idea to make a documentary about R.A. the Rugged Man's career yet. I exaggerate, but being signed to Jive records in the 90's should make for an interesting story regardless of outcome- in R.A.'s case, he signed with the label in -92 and went on to record two albums that were never released due to conflicts with the label. In fact, "Die, Rugged Man, Die" marks R.A.'s album debut and that came out in 2004, a good twelve years after landing his first record deal.

The lyrical themes of the album range between this 90's deal with Jive records on "A Star Is Born"("they tried to turn the label caucasian, they signed me/whitey dawn and the insane clown posse/then they signed the backstreet boys and britney/it's a pop label, what the fuck they want with me?"), an unusual love for self-deprecation ("TLC was talking 'bout me when they wrote 'No Scrubs'") and general shit-talking on the music industry("Yeah I'm mad negative, you want positivity? Buy a Mos Def and Talib Kweli CD!"). While he is a great storyteller, it also feels like there is not always a creative vision behind the otherwise well delivered lyrics.

With how cheap studio equipment is getting, it's actually pretty unheard of to have albums come out this minimalist even from underground acts but "Die, Rugged Man, Die" manages to pull off an elegantly simplistic sound without the album just sounding particularly cheap or unfinished. At times the album does cross over into musical territory where it sounds somewhat underproduced(for example the repetitive "Da Girlz, They Luv Me") but for the most part the production is satisfying.

I can respect making a conscious decision to not overproduce an album; it obviously leaves a lot of room for R.A. to show off, and he does not disappoint. With twelve years worth of time to write lyrics, you'd expect his rhymes to be impressive and they are. In addition to the punchlines and wordplay being superb, the delivery is also stellar: Rugged Man's slow paced, grimy flow, fits perfectly with the lyrical content and the production.

Overall, the album is very strong with only minor complaints in that the production sometimes doesn't pull through and that the lyrics, while extremely well delivered, are not always terribly innovative in topic.

High point of the album: How Low

Low point of the album: Black And White ft. Timbo King

Raekwon - Only Built 4 Cuban Linx pt. 2 (8/10)

"Politics, pop collars and drive violent whips.

Stay fly, hungry and wise, you know the code- honor it.

Sit back, yelling 'it's nothing'- unless his buttons get pressed.

We don't stress nothing, we only get dressed.

Stretched out, moving professional, frying more fish.

I heard it in slurs, them niggas is blessed.

While we ball to the maximum, give me the floor for real-

I show off and let my money get stretched.

Take it to a new level, new bezzle, few rebels,

few wolves with medals on, you know we get test."

from About Me

Artistically speaking, sequels are a hard sell- outside of some rare exceptions it'll just be about the artist trying to make more money based on the fact that they had one work of art do much better than average and are now trying to milk that "brand". Since I've reviewed two albums recently based on the fact that they have sequels coming out this year, I figured today would be about a fairly well executed sequel of recent years.

Raekwon is, to anyone unfamiliar with him, one of the more active members of the Wu-Tang Clan- having pretty much put out a solo release or been on an album a year since his debut- the first installment of the "Only Built 4 Cuban Linx" series. I'm not sure if there's even a theoretical connection between Only Built 4 Cuban Linx parts one and two, but it also doesn't really matter; the album is strong enough that it feels like a shame Raekwon decided to name it after his classic -95 release.

The themes of the album should be familiar to anyone who's listened to the Wu-Tang Clan before: Samples from Kung-Fu movies, lyrics seamlessly going back and forth between romanticizing crime and just talking about life in general, beats a bit all over the place.

Among the better things abotu the album is Raekwons dark, smooth flow and tight delivery. The beats, while thematically different, all feel like they work within the artistic framework of the album; whether it's Dre's typical brooding piano beats or Rza's collage style samples, Raekwon's style of rhyming is diverse enough that it doesn't matter- it's actually damn impressive.

The album features a large number of appearances by other artists; obviously other members of the Wu-Tang Clan are on a lot of tracks but the one that stands out is an incredibly strong appearance by Jadakiss on "Broken Safety". The biggest negative working against the album is the lack of direction it seems to have- there's no real theme tying the album together and most of the time it feels like little more than just a bunch of individual songs.

Granted, it is a bunch of very strong individual songs.

High point of the album: Black Mozart ft. Rza & Inspectah Deck

Low point of the album: Cold Outside ft. Ghostface

Bad Religion - True North (5/10)

"So hold your head up high, forgotten man.

Tomorrow's not for me and you.

And everybody's gotta try to lend a helping hand.

For god and man, there's nothing more to do."

from Dept. of False Hope

With most bands it's easy to pinpoint a three-album stretch marking the bands creative peak. With punk rock veterans Bad Religion, there is little doubt which two of the albums are; you simply have to include their second and third album releases "No Control" and "Against the Grain". The question of whether their more energetic debut "Suffer" is stronger than their very melodic fourth album "Generator" however, can certainly spark debates among fans.

While I recognize both "No Control" and "Against the Grain" as classics, I tend to view the creative direction taken on "Generator" as the start of a much more interesting path than where the group had previously been heading, and subsequent releases "Recipe for Hate" and "Stranger than Fiction" both sound like a band trying to break free from a surprisingly tiny box defined by, I'm guessing, trying to mimic the amazing success of the first two albums.

Something happened somewhere along that journey, though, and the group is now resting comfortably in that same safe zone where their songs all kind of sound the same and at the same time lack the energy of their debut album. It's a shame, but here we are.

True North delivers on the fronts you'd expect it to. The music sounds good, interesting, polished and simplistic; they have always been amazing at harmonies. The lyrics are, like always, thoughtful and intellectual. Sometimes the message will be clear, sometimes vague or cryptic but you get the jist of it most of the time. Governments are bad, religion is stuipd and all that.

Where the album falls short for me, is in that it all just feels like it's been done before. The melodies are catchy, kind of, but not really. The songs are formulaic and evoke no feelings except sour nostalgia for me, a reminder of a band I used to like that I just don't get any more. I'm biased, I know, but I just can't overcome the feeling of wondering what might have been if the band would have stuck to innovating their sound instead of this tired mess.

High point of the album: Nothing to Dismay

Low point of the album: Hello Cruel World