The instrumental hip-hop crowd is already sloughing off towardsinsignificance, with recent releases showing little to no innovation onthe original themes. Another can be added to that list with this latestfrom RJD2, whose new sounds definitely come from the same old tricksfor this set. Truth be told, his last full-length did nothing for me,but the remixes on the HorrorEP gave me some hope that he'd pulled himself out from under theshadows of others to create something original; maybe he learned alesson in that if he let things cook a bit more there'd be somethingreal. That hope not only disappeared but was mercilessly crushed on theopening track, where the same stale drum samples are accompanied byfast cut fades and piano plunks. Then a slow fade out that sounds likeit could be the end of the track, which would have been fine by me, asit seemed like an intro at best. Suddenly, though, the track comesright back in at full volume — SURPRISE! — and right back into the samelame line with a few distorted additions, before fading out slow again,only to come right back in in the same fashion. (It's not the beststart.) RJD2 has a genuine talent for pulling out good voices to throwin on his records, it's just what he layers them over that lacks hereand there and sometimes everywhere. "Exotic Talk" uses a vocoder over amore rock sound, but its bombast is forced and synthetic in nature, notactual. The songs here use vastly varied samples, but the compositionis so very much the same that it never succeeds in revealing anythingmore than the last record. Why he bothered to explore new areas interms of genres to sample, but stayed with the same old productiontechniques, is beyond me. Awkward missteps, like the vocal on "MakingDays Longer," don't improve the overall package, but instead bring itdown even further. There are moments where everything is not mired inmediocrity, such as "Someone's Second Kiss," with its soul vocals andkeyboard soliloquy. Next time, though, it would be beneficial if RJD2expanded his whole repertoire instead of some semblance of it, as itmight create the genre-busting album this genre desperately needs. Plus, an open note to Definitive Jux: Please stop sending out promotional copies of releases that contain anti-pirating voice stamps. It makes it impossiblefor any writer to get a good idea of the music when a voice remindsthem that it's a promo every thirty seconds. At least send out cleancopies to press sources or street teams. I wouldn't have reviewed therecord if I hadn't bought it myself, as it's that detrimental to thelistening experience. Just a thought. I'd never heard anything like itbefore I received this CD. Read More
