If a hip-hop concept album about superheroes sounds a bit frivolous, you must not be a true fan of either hip-hop or superhero comics. On Deadlivers, Grayskul are on some “Dark Knight Returns” type shit, grim and tortured antiheroes waging a remorseless war on an unjust and corrupt world. As futurist scenarios go, Deadlivers is certainly dystopian.
Grayskul are rappers Onry Ozzborn and JFK of the Seattle-based Oldominion crew, aided by bassist Rob Castro. For this project, they’ve rechristened themselves Reason, Recluse, and (rather awesomely) Phantom Ghost El Topo, respectively. Deadlivers also features a powerhouse crew of guest stars (Aesop Rock, Mr. Lif, Canibus, Abstract Rude) representing the top of the underground rap game. The result is pretty goddamn superhuman, indeed.
Reason and Recluse spit dark, intricate lyrics with the swaggering ferocity you’d expect from post-millennial superheroes, and even the lines deployed as casual throwaways are stunning. Consider that “Trapped in an iron maiden with the faintest sign of life/but our overminds exceed your realm of physical vice,” isn’t even the tightest rhyme on the album, and you’re starting to grasp how unbelievably nice these cats are.
The beats fit the sci-fi content superbly. B Sleek, dark, and muscular, the rhythms combine crushing boom-bap technique with cinematic strings, soul horns, and icy electronic stabs. “The Skul” even features Rob Hampton from art-punks The New Mexicans screaming his fool head off, howling “That’ll be the last time you see Grayskul” over a ferocious, skittering beat that sounds like giant insects playing metal riffs on flamenco guitars. For real.
As if sixteen tracks of bruising dark-future microphone menace weren’t enough, Deadlivers closes with the seven-and-a-half minute “Secret Wars” (word to Marvel Comics from the ‘80’s) featuring all fifteen members of Oldominion catching ridiculous amounts of wreck over a bruising drum loop. It’s relentless, sublime, and absurdly good. No hooks. No choruses. Just MCs straight killing shit all goddamn day. Hip-hop moment of the year.
Deadlivers is tough, clever, smart, and funny. Artistic and imaginative without succumbing to pointy-headed abstraction, violent and dark without wallowing in played-out gangster clichés. Deadlivers is a fine example of a hip-hop album fulfilling the genre’s awesome potential. Ace. |