Trollheart

Last one in round three people. Discuss, rate, comment and review here.

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Neapolitan

I am undecided how to vote, it is a toss up between Like or Meh. If I vote Meh, it not because I am apathetic to the album. It is because all the plus and minuses even out. I've listen to the album from beginning to end last week. Read along with the lyrics for the first couple of songs. I think the guy has talent. I like his flow, and his rhyming. It was old school. But some things in his lyrics I didn't care for, really really didn't care for. Some of the music was excellent on the album. A few song had sounds that I thought didn't work. One was some kind of corny synths or samples or whatever, but it takes away from an already decent backing track. The other with steady gun fire which I didn't care for. I don't think I will listen to this album again on own out of the club.

rating: 3/5

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[MERIT]

*EL-P, not EI-P

This was my introduction to El-P. I copped this record a solid decade ago. Tasmanian Pain Coaster, Smithereens, Poisoneville Kids,The Overly Dramatic Truth, Drive. So many great tracks! LOVE IT!

Good lookin' out Trollheart!

SoundboardTerrorSquad

This is better than Cancer 4 Cure and everybody deep down knows it

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Goofle

It's quite a lot better of course. His best album in fact.

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[MERIT]

Poisenville Kids No Wins / Reprise [This Must Be Our Time]



This is the sound of what you don't know, killing you
This is the sound of what you don't need, still true
This is the sound of what you don't want, still in you

Never again

When a live wire lights
Little metal rail: right
Where a marvel of engineering steered me clear into the plight
Right before the bodegas open
After the peak of night
Before the paper's delivered
I sat on the corner and sparked a light
The same corner I perched when I zone dropped on the block first
At almost 5 o'clock watching for sun spots and store clerks
A lone spot
It was kinda like the zone was forgot
As if the grid had been reset and couldn't catch to the clock
Or the stoop was stuck in the past a half minute
And I sat in it
With a loosie Newpy drift out of my lips
Taste: half minted

Come on

And I felt like a hundred bucks in the pocket of a gambling lush
At a wondershowzen flow with the droids of destructo luck
Fugitoid on the run again
The sky gleamed the maroonish coloring
Layered against the bluest tone from where the thunder lived
And here I was directly under it
Like some dejected little grey they told to stay and wait for the mothership
A cotton ball in a blizzard of mischief
A brain prison
With a thought that rode on the bus and came for conjugal visits
And fucked its way into my gray matter
The tattered territory
Stayed chattering and nagging till it demanded it yell it for me
And I tried to hold the thing back
But the meditation was otherly
Fixated on what a friend said and relating it to my struggling
Metropoloid void so damn smothering
But we were children of Poisenville and saw the seduction less repugnant
And reserved the right as the triggerman with the back-up plan of self destruction
And I touched the type of chemicals that could pull me towards that function
It's the stuff I find hard for discussion
How the fuck do you explain your own self destruction and still remain trusted?

Come on

To answer the question: yes
The city wants you gone
And that’s the only thing connecting us
But the connection is so strong
So how dare you assume that I'll sleep when you're dead?
This is well outside the boundaries of acceptable behavior
I will not give you the go ahead
And you will not be remembered fondly
I'm throwing down the gauntlet
And fuck you
This isn't your decision
And for all the holy fuck I give
Your little spectacle is ended
But don't think for just one second you've honored your obligations to me
I'm serious
Look in my eyes
I don't find this funny
Or whatever you imagine poetry and justice feels like when you combine them
I am not going to allow this on my watch, buddy
Nobodies impressed with your imagined sacrifice device or insurmountable regret
You are not uniquely pained and if you go we won't be sorry
And who the hell are you to put me through the banality of watching this?
Cuz many better men have gone for clearly better reasons
And I starkly must remind you that you have not even been trying
And that's the only thing remarkable about you
Stop me if I'm lying

We are always outnumbered
But we were never out militia’d
There's no dignity for criminals
No ministry for the wicked
In this town, if you make a sound, you're the leper with the most fingers
The League of Extraordinary Nobodies
The other team’s bringing in ringers
No faith in the majority
No hope for the little ones
Sally pulled a pistol out
Billy got a blunderbuss
So what the fuck are you feeling that makes your struggle so wondrous?
Enough to arrogantly pull what's left of the rug out from under us?
I think not
You're in the same barrel
All us other crabs are caught
And if I have to live, you have to live
Whether you like this shit or not

Never again

Come on

Dedicated to the drowning and the noble futility of the desperate friends forced to watch

Never again

And to my good friends who refused to allow it to happen to me

Never again

You know who you are
You know what I'm talking about

Never again

Believe me, man
I promise

Never, never, never gonna get that way again



If you can't appreciate this, then I pity you.

Paedantic Basterd

I wanted to love this because I love Run the Jewels, but I'm a music person first and a lyrics person like... third or fourth, honestly. I wish the songwriting and production was more varied. Not that it doesn't have some great moments, it's just obviously not the priority here. Unfotunately, that doesn't leave me much to return to.

[MERIT]

Take some drugs, turn off the lights, lay down and listen to the album with your eyes closed. You'll get it.

rubber soul

El-P – I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead (2007)

Best Tracks: Up All Night, the League of Extraordinary Nobodies, Habeas Corpus ( Draconian Love)

Weakest Tracks: Dear Sirs, Run the Numbers

Another Hip-Hop album though in somewhat of a different style than Open Mike Eagle. I found this album more enjoyable. I thought there were some pretty nice uses of sampling. I was still trying to place the sample on Drive and now I remember where I had heard something similar, Fatboy Slim’s Weapon of Choice (I assume that too was also a sample).

I liked the music especially. I tend to pay less attention to the lyrics unless the language is especially crude or violent. I don’t think this album crossed the line there.

I really liked the line in Habeas Corpus (I found love on a prison ship). El-P seems to be demented at time in a Weird Al sort of way I guess. Overall, there were really no tracks that I would call absolute classics, but the poorer tracks aren’t the worst I’ve heard either. In other words, the album is fairly consistent.

I bounced from giving this album a 6 or a 7 (I am saying I like it), but I really couldn’t decide whether the better parts rated or the lesser parts took the album down a little. So I’ll go halfway with my assessment.




6.5/10 (the Word has spoken )

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OccultHawk

The production/soniclandscape and beats are boss. The themes and lyrics are boss. The delivery is machine gun fire but static. His rapping is fierce but not dynamic. Unfortunately, that’s a significant drawback. 3/5

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Member of the Year & Journal of the Year Champion

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