| Hailing from Project Blowed, the Los Angeles fast-rap Mecca that spawned Freestyle Fellowship, emcees Busdriver and Radioinactive have long had good ideas - grotesque, attention-grabbing deliveries and lyrics at once dizzyingly figurative and giddily associative - but no idea what to do with them. On The Weather, a tight-knit and gleefully inscrutable concept album, light-headed pop culture scavenger Daedelus allows the two to pull off their enlightened silliness without offending anyone's intelligence or tolerance for self-indulgence. Busdriver's scat-inspired caterwaul on "Thousand Words" is at once terrifying and heartening. On "Pen's Oil" he recalls the bounding, vivacious and altogether fresher emcee that Blackalicious' Gift of Gab was almost a decade ago. Radioinactive, a more measured foil for the profligate Busdriver, has made at least one recovering underground enthusiast's day by revisiting on "Carl Weathers" the blistering, tricky cadence of his beginnings in Log Cabin. Daedelus' chirpy beats wisely stay out of the way, and he keenly reins in the vocals, making for an album that actually sounds like it's about something, if only coherence. In spite of its rapid-fire lyrics, absurdist sensibility and clipped, unsettling samples, The Weather is clever, fully realized, word happy fun. - Philadelphia Weekly |
2XLP/Out Of Print