Aesop Rock None Shall Pass

Let me start off by saying i know this album is a little old by the standards of instantaneous gratification we are accustomed to but fuck it. There is no album i have heard since i really fell in love with music, that has grabbed at my eardrum as much as this minefield of lyrics and fuck fest of great beats. Aesop Rock has had brilliant albums, Labor Days is also a must have, but this album is as close to perfect as you can get. I still have yet to decode half his lyrics, he raps with such vivid imagery wrapped up in tornado of a pace, it's like you almost half to change the way you think about lyrics and words in general to sniff out all of his clever jabs. He himself has attached wings to his words with his own brilliant production. "Five Fingers" and "None Shall Pass" are obvious picks for being the shining stars on the album, but even the songs that don't smack you with that grabbing sound, the music is still phenomenal, and Aesop is at his finest. a quick but important high five to blockhead and rob sonic for producing as usual great music, the track sneaking on the back of coffee "Pigs" may be my favorite ASE song ever. Over a beat that sounds like it was made on a street in Frisco, with a junkie on a guitar, he raps

"Two-track braniac using the food and payroll
To chew up and consume every cookie, crumb, and peso
And place a cloven hoof on the lucrative when convenient
As the bourbon-odor smokers' coughs smolder off the Cohiba
If Noah had the benefit of hindsight on his ship
He could've snatched two unicorns and left behind the motherfucking pigs..."

When you actually pick up on the things he says, which i admit when i first heard him sounded like gibberish, you catch on to one of independent raps prime examples of outside the box thinking. I think he operates on a planet above lables and placement. So just grab the album, ask me to borrow it, i don't care what kind of music you like, delve into an album worth the time it takes to understand it. When i figure out how to post songs i will put a couple up. GET THE ALBUM.