Splendor & Misery

‘Splendor & Misery’ is no prog indulgence, and doesn’t come with A Message, a shoehorned “plot” or a shred of ponderous pomposity.Instead, it’s a magnificent, nerve-jangling and altogether rather riveting blast of unflinching white noise and throb, virtuoso rapping and, most improbable of all, richly romantic gospel-choir interludes.

Splendor & Misery is sincere and staunchly ambitious. With it, clipping. Have solidified their position at the forefront of experimental music.

On Splendour & Misery, the creative scope of clipping. yet again expands, dreaming up a dystopian narrative in which a computer falls in love with a sole survivor of a slave uprising.

Suffocating, stressful, and challenging, Splendor & Misery is uncompromising in its desolation, and it’s all the better for it.

Cinematic in its scope, the album runs like a screenplay with character developments, recurring themes, tragedy and, finally, resolve.

The experimental hip hop trio clipping. returns with an intriguing concept album.

It’s the high-concept eclecticism, however, that makes this record so cumbersome. Amidst unprecedented stylistic leaps and machine-gun rapping, comprehending the meaning of Splendor & Misery is a true challenge.

Splendor and Misery is an album most enjoyed with your head, not with your heart.

While at times this all can feel a bit too robotic, the narrative is broken up by brief interludes that feature more noise, more of Diggs' raps and passages of sung spirituals.

Splendor and Misery doesn’t do much to resuscitate the bygone art that is the space opera concept album, despite the sincerest efforts of all involved. That said, it’s not a bad album, and when it hits its mark, it hits hard.

Frankly, a rap space opera shouldn't work this well, and it's a testament to the trio's vision that it does, even if Splendor & Misery can be a pretty turbulent voyage.

This is an artistic and political statement that needs to be heard, however uncomfortable it makes you feel.

The need to keep everything within the conceptual loop means tracks often suffer. We know that Clipping can craft might and heft, but this too often fails to engage.

It’s possible to create compelling hip-hop instrumentals from shards of noise—just look at Food for Animals and Death Grips or clipping.’s previous work—but on Splendor & Misery, clipping. often prize well-placed sound effects over songcraft. In its drive for conceptual rigor, the album neglects to engage the listener musically.