The first time I ever heard Aesop Rock, the friend who played it for me explained that "you either like his flow, or you don't." This statement puzzled me at first, because it sort of preemptively discounted any notions of talent, originality or poise that he might possess as an MC, but after that first listen, I saw what my friend meant. There's something singular and oddly-formed about Ace's nervous, shifty, Kool Keith-inspired? raps (which alternately discuss video games and social conflict) and the way they interact with the claustrophobic beats. And I dug it.
That was? after hearing 2000's Float, and the style is pretty consistent on Bazooka Tooth, but something is missing, and it took me a little while to figure out exactly what it was. Oh yeah. Good lyrics.
"I make sentences that aren't really sentences," said Aesop Rock to CMJ New Music Report,"and they're combinations of words that you've never heard." Very deep, Mr. Rock, but let's be honest here. We've heard bad lyrics before, and we're not impressed.
To top it off, Ace has split with Def Jux cohort Omega One, making the decision to self-produce Bazooka Tooth. The decision, we soon find, is a poor one, because the beats and knob-twiddles that once stayed in the high and low ranges, beautifully emphasizing Ace's mid-range voice on traks like Float's "I'll be Okay," are replaced this time by a mess of middle-range sounds that all but drown out the timbre of Ace's voice. And so, tragically, Bazooka Tooth has nothing of that classic Def Jux sound, full of stilted turns of phrase and details of Proustian proportions.
