Top 10 Albums of 2007: #8
8) “None Shall Pass”, by Aesop Rock
Aesop Rock, or Aes Rizzle as he calls himself on various shout-outs and internet blogs, has been a pioneer of rap for ten years now, and it’s starting to show. If there’s a metaphorical bridge you have to cross to pass between the world of underground and mainstream rap, Aesop Rock would be the guy you have a ridiculous swordfight with while crossing said bridge. Along with El-P, Aes Rizzle has consistently defended his status as one of the pioneers of underground hip-hop. His incredible rapping style, an almost-ramble that tends to string together gargantuan metaphors and astute social commentary, hasn’t changed much over the years, but his style certainly has. In the beginning, “Music for Earthworms”, Aes spits out a CD-R chock full of commentary on war, work, and living in society, themes which have been prominent throughout his career. And I’ll be honest; it hasn’t gotten old yet. Aes has managed to change his themes to suit the times, keeping the themes constant, but diversifying his subject matter.
“None Shall Pass”, our latest glimpse into the twisty and turn-y world of Aesop Rock, is completely different from everything else he’s done. It’s not the lyrics; Aes keeps spitting his mind onto the CD faster than a getaway car. It’s not the instrumentation either; the album is certainly fuller than its predecessors, but if you’ve heard “Fast Cars, Danger, Fire and Knives”—Aesop’s 2005 EP—you were expecting it. It’s Aesop Rock himself. He’s growing up, he knows it, and he wants us to know it as well. It’s prominent in the background and in the song titles (‘Keep off the Lawn’ and ‘Bring Back Pluto’ being just a few), but this album marks a major turning point in Aesop’s life. He brings a darker, more cynical knife to the fight here, but his humor remains intact throughout the album. I absolutely detest saying anything that Rolling Stone said before me, but you find yourself constantly directed to the phrase in ‘39 Thieves’: “Bullets don’t take bribes, stupid, they shoot shit.” This dry, matter-of-fact humor is prevalent throughout the album, as if Aes is determined to grimly laugh his way through turning thirty. More often than not, the humor strikes hard, and it helps enunciate the larger problems Aesop Rock wants to show. Sometimes, however, it falls on its face; most noticeably in ‘Bring Back Pluto’. I love the song as much as I love the ex-planet, but it feels more like a verse or two that got expanded into an entire song.
This hasn’t been a problem with Aesop Rock’s albums before; his older songs often end with you marveling at how he could pack so much into four minutes. In “None Shall Pass”, this feeling isn’t entirely gone, but it’s definitely not as prevalent. Aes isn’t getting more predictable, not by any means, but his songs often seem to strain for ideas that don’t really stand up well on their own (see the extensive popcorn metaphor in ‘Gun for the Whole Family’ for more details). This only happens once or twice, but for a rapper whose style has been continually noted for its cram-everything-into-one-song execution, it’s a bit of a misstep. It’s certainly a new style, but then again, “None Shall Pass” is a whole new Aesop. And no matter how old he is or what he has to say, it’s always an amazing experience listening to Aes Rizzle spit out his opinions to everybody in earshot.
Recommended Listening: “None Shall Pass”, “39 Thieves”, “No City”, “Coffee”.
-blake
