Never Better [10th Anniversary Edition]

It almost feels mean-spirited to call rap-rock, so sullied is that name from millennial mook-rock, but as he proudly interpolates and on , it becomes obvious that this term is one he's determined to redefine. Track titles like don't disappoint, all churlish guitar thuds, chest-thumping choruses and rapid-fire rhymes; it feels like the aesthetic done right, which is, really, a strange artistic achievement, but one handily accomplished. These hot flashes of intensity are nicely contrasted by neighbors like the darkly soothing and the satisfying boom-bap of giving the album some assured ebbs in intensity. Better still is the bombastically chintzy which sounds like the type of beat would save for his very favorite client. But this is staunchly ' show, and as an MC he's eager to dazzle. While his big emphatic Midwestern enunciation recalls , his emo-rap fixations are more in line with or . He's fixated, obsessed even, with his friends, particularly those who've abused his trust, and constructs his record from the pensive moments of solitude between vainglorious barnburners. Between this brutal bleating and the general anger of the production, the record is dank and punishing on the ears -- probably just as intended, but still a step or two shy of the sonic maturity he so yearns to lend the subgenre. ~ Clayton Purdom