Blockhead is a great producer, I don't think there is much doubt about that. On this album, Blockhead shows off the range of his talents, from soft Jazz Rap to tense and winding beats. Some production highlights are the buoyant and energetic "Mississippi" which acts as a perfect springboard for Aesop Rock to go insane with one of his most lively verses in a while, the dark beat on "Lighthouse" greatly benefits UGLYFRANK's sinister delivery, "Give Thanks" has a detailed beat with great percussion that makes for amazing accompaniment to the Armand Hammer feature, and "Sad Vampire" has a texturally interesting but sparse enough beat to allow Brian Ennals to be the driving force of the song which is delivered on with one of the best features of the record.
The real sell of this album is the feature list and it is stunning, it is essentially a best-of-list list of alternative MCs with some incredible highlights. As I expected billy woods (both alone and as part of the Armand Hammer feature), Quelle Chris, Aesop Rock, RXKNephew, and other big names did great work but I was most surprised by the work of those I am less familiar with. The strongest of those being UGLYFRANK, Brian Ennals, and strongest of all AKAI SOLO who I have heard elsewhere but blew me away here.
Sadly it isn't all wins, a few of the beats feel a bit overly busy and The Koreatown Oddity and Bruiser Wolf feel like they are slightly lagging behind the other MCs as far as verse quality goes, but for the most part, I was surprised by how consistently great this album is. The album ends with a killer posse cut featuring a number of the features from the record including a much better verse from Bruiser Wolf and expectedly excellent work from billy woods, Danny Brown, and Despot, for an album so packed in varying energy a posse cut with such vastly different MCs felt like the perfect way to draw it to a close. Even with its weak spots Blockhead has proven himself as a producer and brought along a slew of amazing talents to seal the deal, check it out.
