From Amazon.co.uk
With
Labor Days, his first release on New York independent hip-hop label Def Jux, run by Company Flow's El-P, Aesop Rock exceeds the promise of his early limited edition albums (
Music For Earthworms,
Appleseed and
Float), confirming himself as a modern day
Gil Scott Heron. A hyper realist and as cynical as they come, but engaging with it, Aesop's gritty tales of street-life are a million blocks away from the cash-guns-girls glamour of his major label counter-parts. His rhymes dissect the mundane everyday slog, depicting a society long past caring, and too caught up in the daily grind to notice. Pouring his deepest thoughts over mournful backing tracks of down-tempo ghetto funk, cinematic grooves, sleazy jazz laments or eastern influenced orchestrals--and in the case of "Battery" all at once--
Labor Days is a powerful concoction. Granted it's gloomy, but his dexterous flows and the social commentary delivered in his caustic couplets--see Coma's scathing attack on society's lethargy "If the revolution ain't gonna be televised, f*ck I'll probably miss it"--are imbued with a level of intellect that's refreshing to say the least. --
Dan Gennoe