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None Shall Pass

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Aesop Rock

 
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Avg: 4.0 (477 ratings)

Long Island's premier hip-hop abstractionist gets back to business as (un)usual.

  • We Say...

    Review by Nate Patrin

    Some MCs are imposing because of their swagger; Aesop Rock intimidates with opacity. The fourth full-length album in a decade from the Long Island-born abstractionist is a boon to fans of unconventional lyricism, largely because Aes has honed his flow and now sounds comfortable going about business as (un)usual. Elaborate analogies, dense allusions and traffic-jam anxiety are all delivered in that droning, sneering, frequently rapid-fire human wah-wah pedal of a voice.

    At the same time, he's come into his own as a producer. While Blockhead — the beatsmith who crafted the majority of the personality on earlier efforts like Float and Labor Days — contributes seven tracks (including the title track's anxious disco-jazz and the rare groove boom-bap of "Getaway Car") and Def Jux associates El-P and Rob Sonic deploy dystopian b-boy breaks on "Gun for the Whole Family" and "Dark Heart News" respectively, much of the record's psych-funk atmosphere is nailed into place by beats Aesop's assembled; the grimy fuzz guitar on "Keep Off the Lawn" and the Zapp-with-delirium-tremens bounce of "Citronella" are as uncompromising as his lyrics.

    Patient listeners will eventually realize that, opaque as they are, those lyrics do mean something — frequently commenting on the tribulations of human interaction, coming of age and figuring out where you belong in the world. Listeners less interested in deconstructing his verbiage should at least be able to appreciate the way his flow borders slickness and panic, making for a mesmerizing lead instrument.

  • They Say...

    Review by Marisa Brown, All Music Guide

    Aesop Rock has been impressing the backpacker crowd with his intricate lyrics and dark, dirty, melodic production ever since he self-released Music for Earthworms back in 1997, helping to define the East Coast underground scene and validate the presence of white rappers. And even though he moved to San Francisco in 2005, prompting some outcry from New York purists, all thoughts of bright, funky West Coast beats and lyrics can be put to rest, because None Shall Pass, the album being heralded as the true follow-up to the seminal Labor Days, is as powerful as anything the MC has ever created. Once again Blockhead takes responsibility for most of the production here, though he's helped out both by Rock himself (who showed off his skills, as well as those of his guitar-playing wife, on the Nike/iTunes-commissioned Original Run series back in February 2007) and Def Jux labelhead and near-legend El-P, who also adds vocals to "39 Thieves," one of the few tracks on the record that has a fairly comprehensible message ("Money is cool, I'm only human/But they use it as a tool to make the workers feel excluded/Like the shinier the jewel the more exclusive the troop is/Bullets don't take bribes, stupid, they shoot shit," he rhymes in the breakdown). Because despite, or perhaps more accurately, due to, Aesop Rock's verbal talent and his ability to combine complicated internal rhyme with innovative phrasing and metaphors, a lot of his couplets, and even entire stories, are fairly cryptic. "None Shall Pass," with its great keyboard sample and helium-voiced chorus, is vaguely about society having to pay for its sins, the fantastic "The Harbor Is Yours" tells the tale of a "pirate," and features some great vocal stuttering ("And you should tell them where you situate the gold/That is unless you'd like a vacation with Davy J-J-J-Jones"), and "Bring Back Pluto" is more than an appeal to astronomers, though to who else it applies to is a little unclear. This doesn't mean that there are a lot of empty phrases here -- Aesop Rock is clearly a careful, deliberate writer -- but he can tend toward the experimental school of rhyme, which can be a little alienating. Still, his cadence, sharp and accentuated, and his bitonal flow are strangely warm and inviting, and it's hard not to get sucked into at least trying to understand what he's saying, trying to make sense of it all. Plus, the talent, both of Rock and his guests (which, besides El-P, also include Ron Sonic, John Darnielle from the Mountain Goats, Breezly Brewin', and Cage) is impressive, and makes None Shall Pass an album that deserves a lot of attention, both inside and outside the hip-hop world.

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