Quick Hits, Vol. 135 (Vic Mensa, Superjoint, The Shrine, Pouya)

Just realized this was still sitting in my drafts folder.  More ACL reviews to come, just thought I'd go ahead and toss this one out into the ether.

Vic Mensa - There's Alot Going On.  Mensa came to ACL a few years ago and I recall enjoying listening to his raps beforehand.  He's a Chicago guy who had appeared on Chance's first big mixtape in 2013.  This is his first official-looking real album, as opposed to a bunch of singles he had released before, although its only 7 songs.  The stand-out to me is "16 Shots," which details the Laquan McDonald murder by Chicago cops.

Holy crap, man.  That video holds back on nothing at all.  Powerful tune, and having the bloodless reading by some police spokesperson is powerful at the end as well.  I'd prefer to do without the autotune on "Danger," but "Dynasty" and "Liquor Locker" are both good tunes of fast paced rhymes.  Seems like he would release a full on album sometime soon.  I think I'll wait for that one.

Superjoint - Caught up in the Gears of Application.  What is happening. This is waaaaaay to heavy for me today (or really any day).  Ah, this is the lead singer of Pantera, which I enjoyed back in the day, along with some other dudes I don't know and then Hank Williams the III on bass.  Which is weird.  But this is some legit cookie monster screaming metal sadness.  Only one song has more than 30k streams, so I'll give you that one, but this stuff is hurting my head.

Not shockingly, that is the album opener.  I think, like me, people are coming to this with a "hey, I dug Pantera!  Mouth for War was cool!" and then going "oh, holy crap, not that, my brain."  and then they can't make it and they stp bing able to tipe and they just die.

The Shrine - Bless Off.  Now this is my kind of rock and roll.  Heavily steeped in the 70's rock god world built by Zeppelin and then Sabbath, this is riff-heavy stuff that doesn't involve scary vocals or screaming that makes that Superjoint album up above so unpleasant.  This album is older, I came to it because I had listened to the newer disc and liked it.  The first song is the most listened to track on Spotify, but there is another with almost as many listens that is currently the most popular in the list, called "Tripping Corpse."

That video is some funny stuff.  I need a big ass white van full of bumper stickers on the inside and a wolf sticker on the outside.  This is how I should drop the kids off at school every day.  But these dudes don't hold back and they sound super awesome because of it.  They call their music Psychedelic Violence.  Mmmkay.  Give me "Hellride" any day.

Pouya - Underground Underdog.  Another album that came from an NPR article (I think) about the best rap of 2016, which I read while in the waiting room of my dermatologist while waiting for some help with a nice case of poison ivy.  Good times.  This guy is interesting.  My first reference point is Eminem, with an in-your-face, crass set of lyrics (and 300 middle fingers on his album cover), but the flow sounds more like a Bone Thugs-n-Harmony thing.  Guy looks like he is white, which I didn't expect after listening through this a few times, and is in Miami.  His most popular ("Energy") doesn't have a video, so you get "Scrubs" which has 1.1 million streams.

Man, that video is terrible.  Just a guy on his iPhone, filming two dudes rolling into a convenience store to buy some snacks?  And his gangsta roll of cash is all ones?  Not a great song, which matches the video well.  "Fat hoes," with its descriptions of different lady bits, is disturbingly catchy.  Weird that this was considered by someone to be best of 2016, I won't keep it around.