eurylaimus

An interesting release from Nas and DJ Premier to cap off Mass Appeal's seven album oldhead run and continue Nas' prolific late career renaissance. Nas is Nas with his lyricism, but there's only so many times you can talk about the streets and your legacy before you end up retreading the same ground. The trademark scritch-scratch production from Preemo is mostly consistent, but there are some missteps, especially NYSOM Pt. 3, which suffers from a combination of an insipid beat ... read more

A tour de force in triteness. The production starts off muddling and slowly deteriorates over the course of the album, until you start to wonder how anyone could come up with beats this derivative and uninspired. If the production is only boring, the songwriting is positively juvenile, reading more like slam poetry by a 13 year old than actual effort put forth by someone who's been in the music industry for 20 years. The juvenile innuendo that is Wood and the teenaged diary entry that is ... read more

A very weird album for me to rate, because there's nothing wrong with the music, it's just that there isn't much right with it either. Laufey's vocals are very nice and the music is nice, but an entire album full of it is just super boring, like listening to grass grow. This is especially true for the start of the album, with the first three songs honestly being a test of how long you can deal with a really slow spoken word performance without skipping through. It picks up a ... read more