Issue#57 [Album Reviews]

Reviews of the latest by Rick Ross, Super Furry Animals, The Venture Bros and Years after the jump.

Rick Ross
Deeper Than Rap
Def Jam
Did you know Rick Ross and 50 Cent have beef? No? It’s probably because the year isn’t 1999 and rap beef doesn’t matter anymore. Did you know that 50 Cent got one of his goons to make a sex tape with one of Ross’s baby’s mothers in retaliation for said beef? No? Did you know Rick Ross just made an amazing album and all the previous bullshit doesn’t really matter? You do now. Although the lyrical content is mostly the same as his previous work (see the track “Rich off Cocaine”), Ross has made an album that can only be described as classy. Ditching synthesizers for soul samples and an improved flow make Deeper Than Rap his best effort yet. A few standout tracks are “Maybach Music 2,” which features Kanye West, T-Pain and Lil Wayne, all sans auto-tune, and the opening track, “Mafia Music,” which can only be described as having a huge beat with Ross going hard and you forgetting that there’s a recession. Deeper Than Rap is easily one of the best releases of the year thus far. Did I mention Rick Ross owns a racehorse?
Zia Hirji

Get it from iTunes here.

Super Furry Animals
Dark Days / Light Years
Rough Trade
So this album starts with people talking and I’m not sure how I’m going to handle “Crazy Naked Girls” until there’s singing and then I think the song is over because there is cheering and I worry for a split-second that this is a live album and then the song continues in its panic and indecision. AHH! Think of your impatience with my long, confusing sentence there and you’ll know a bit of SFA’s ninth album’s opener. The second song, “Mt.” wins me over in a “Mellow Yellow” kind of way. But then the next song is too mellow for me to listen all the way through. “Inaugural Trams” is a lot more fun, in a “(Drawing) Rings Around the World” way. I had a flashback to the movie Run Lola Run when a German rap breaks out in the middle of the song. A guy from Franz Ferdinand is responsible for that. I love Neil Diamond, so having a song called “The Very Best of Neil Diamond” is enough for me. “Helium Hearts” sounds like the Welsh boys are shaking car keys at a four-year-old’s birthday party. This song will be on all of my mixes this summer. Okay, I really have to go outside now.
Natalie Vermeer

Get it from iTunes here.

The Venture Bros
The Music of JG Thirlwell
Williams Street
This album will make your life more exciting. That’s a rare and a bold statement and it’s true. It happened for me, all you have to do is put it on your MP3 player and hop on the streetcar; all of a sudden the guy in the back seems intriguing, if not a little suspiscious. There’s no time for that; a seat just became free. You spring into action and in two bounds snag the seat. Phew, that was close! The streetcar lunges forward and she walks on, the sultry red head from two stops after yours. You’re just about to make your move when the communication watch goes off; it’s Rusty Venture, your stop is next and it’s time for work. The rare alterless ego of James George Thirlwell brings tightly knit orchestration and a keen sense of genre to The Venture Bros score; adventure, sex, violence, emotions and cartoonishness made music. It reminds me of all my favourite parts of Mr. Bungle songs and all my favourite parts of The Venture Bros. The fact of the matter is that this album is exactly what it says it is and it delivers perfectly. What more can a guy ask for?
Bismarck Willhelm Von Brecht

Years
S/T
Years Music
There are so many familiar sounds that clamor over each other on this record that a ramble about their derivation would be endless and surely pointless. It is a cloud of influence that parts to reveal a clearer picture into a mind that drives Do Make Say Think and who contributes, likely more than a small piece, to the Broken Social Scene. The mind of Ohad Benchetrit. Years has a singular orchestrated flow, an expected characteristic of a true solo record void of jamming sludge or dick licking compromise, but amazingly it’s also clever and interesting from start to finish, rarely meandering on a theme longer than is tasteful. Between polished edits there are moments of very human un-edited guitar—a satisfying dose of reality that reminds the listener of the living person that is making these epic sounds. Ohad Benchetrit has conjured a record that is moving and special.
Hayz Fisher

Get it from iTunes here