Artist: Apostle of Hustle
Album: Eats Darkness
The third Apostle of Hustle full-length finds Andrew Whiteman and co. moving away from their signature sound — or perhaps digging a bit deeper into it. That is to say that the unique, Cuban-inspired "folkloric feel" that the band started from is a bit obscured by a more straight-ahead rock sound. But to call this a departure misses two points: first, that even if he has largely put down the tres, it has informed and been incorporated into his guitar technique; and also that this gets a bit closer to the sort of rockin' live sound that AoH have had all along.
The first two songs on the album are both crackers. The spiky energy of "Eazy Speaks" contrasts nicely with the warmly buoyant tones of the Lisa Lobsinger-aided "Soul Unwind". From there, the songs proceed quite sure-footedly, including two of Whiteman's most "pop" tunes yet in the bouncy "Xerxes" and closer "Blackberry". To the bad, though, the songs are interspersed between interstitial collages that play hip-hop mixtape skits up against Burroughsian cut-and-paste composition. Although they might fulfill a thematic purpose, helping to link the album's concerns (a fascination with cartoon-y hip-hop violence and Latin American revolutionary jargon and how all that relates to art and poetry), they are interesting to hear once, maybe, and after that are a bit of a distraction. They also pad out what is a short-ish thirty-six minute running time. Still, not much to complain about when there are a half-dozen top-notch songs here. A nice addition to the discography.
Track Picks: 2 - "Eazy Speaks", 3 - "Soul Unwind", 13 - "Blackberry"
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