So this one took a bit for me to finally get to - overall, a good record, wish I liked it more, but that's what happens when you get weird cuts like this that come out of nowhere. But the next release almost certainly won't fall in that category... because it's Creeper. Whoo boy, that'll be a fun one, so stay tuned!
So... do any of you remember that rap rock debut album Boy Thursday I reviewed a few weeks ago from the group KNIVES, that I thought was decent but didn't really rise above its inspirations and ultimately just wasn't really for me? Well, I'm assuming the majority of you didn't, because that review got barely any traffic and was for an artist for which I only really covered thanks to Patreon. And in that review, I also mentioned that the rapper J. Medeiros also had a slightly more electronic-driven project called AllttA that was releasing its full-length debut this year? Well, guess what we're talking about today, requested and voted on by the very same patron? Look, in all fairness I'm happy I got a chance to talk about this now - if you see what's coming in April we have what looks like a tsunami of new music, most of which looks to be pretty damn awesome, and this would probably get lost in the shuffle. And more than that, hip-hop has had a bit of a mixed year thus far - sure, we got Run The Jewels and Quelle Chris, but beyond that... there hasn't been a lot that's crossed my plate that I've loved. So okay, I was in the mood for some aggressive, smartly written bars, and even though I knew this would take a lot to unpack J. Medeiros is a solid MC, so what did I find in The Upper Hand?
So as I've mentioned a number of times, I didn't go through an angry white boy phase in my teens - I jumped pretty much from mainstream pop and hip-hop radio to power and symphonic metal, and that meant I pretty much skipped modern rock radio. And a big consequences of that is that I came to the nu-metal rap rock scene much later in my early twenties in comparison to many others - it was not a formative part of my musical evolution. And I'm kind of grateful for that, because upon revisitation with rare exception, a lot of rap rock tended to be really bad, especially in the late 90s the closer it crept to the gut-churning angst of nu-metal or the overblown and frequently disgusting machismo of acts like Limp Bizkit. This was music that rarely bothered to be tuneful or driven by consistent grooves or strong musicality, and that's before we get to the often atrocious lyrics. Now that's not saying I didn't find stuff I liked: I've always been a big fan of the Beastie Boys, and when you follow it with solid work from the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Faith No More, and Rage Against The Machine, there is a subset of this music I like, especially leaning towards more of the punk side. And there's a part of me that feels this genre could sustain a comeback, potentially even driven from hip-hop instead of rock. Acts like Doomtree and Run The Jewels are only getting production that is more aggressive and abrasive, and that's before you touch on mainstream acts like Eminem, who I'd put money on pursuing more of a rap rock direction if he drops a record in a year or so, especially if he goes more political. And so into that vein comes KNIVES, a new band fronted by L.A. rapper J. Medeiros, who you might know from his association with Rawkus Records or his work with The Procussions in the early 2000s. Medeiros has actually been active since the late 90s - and pretty damn prolific at that, so in addition to a planned debut from his electronic/hip-hop project AllttA later this year, he's been pushing a rap rock band inspired by punk and post-hardcore called KNIVES. They have a debut record, and in the aftermath of covering P.O.S and not getting the political material for which I hoping, I thought this would be a good step - was I right?
