Cheat Codes

EDIT:
Growing to be one of my favourite albums of the decade, tried and true boom bap done extraordinarily well.

'Cheat Codes' was an album that I was highly anticipating from Danger Mouse & Black Thought, the singles had been consistently fantastic and very promising, the feature list was stacked, and I was really intrigued to see what these two greats could come up after supposedly 16 years of making this project, and to be fair I'm not one bit disappointed since the majority of what's offered on 'Cheat Codes' is really damn great. It's no masterpiece and it doesn't add much new but Danger Mouse & Black Thought stick to their guns, do what they do best, and in turn plenty of great Hip-Hop tracks can be found across it's duration.

Production wise this has some of the best work from Danger Mouse in a long time, in presentation it has a consistently raw aesthetic that calls back to the rough, sample heavy boom bap of the 90's but it maintains Danger Mouse's unique style while also adding some variety for each track. There's odd mixes for sure but I really liked the approach with a lot of this and the instrumentals themselves are just fantastic across the board while accompanying Black Thought and the numerous guest artists. Speaking of which Black Thought absolutely kills it, who woulda guessed? I have yet to hear a song where Black Thought isn't at the very least giving a very good performance, it's no different on 'Cheat Codes' since it's just nothing but a great presence, great pen game that's potent, and great flows. I shit you not when I say every feature is great, everyone sounds perfectly placed on their respective tracks whether they're here to provides hooks or verses, some of the stand outs in particular being Dylan Cartlidge and Michael Kiwanuka for their hooks, as well as Raekwon, Russ (surprisingly), MF DOOM, A$AP Rocky (who has no right to sound as amazing as he does on 'Strangers'), RTJ and Conway who provide excellent verses for their respective tracks.

There's maybe two tracks that aren't at the same standard as the rest of the album but that's as far as my criticisms go since I really loved a lot of this album, generally it's just another great Hip-Hop album to behold from both Danger Mouse & Black Thought and it's another one that I'd recommend for you to check out if you love Hip-Hop and haven't heard it.

Best Tracks: Because, Aquamarine and Strangers
Worst Track: Identical Death