Revelator feels like a culmination to a few long-running veins in the underground scene - fusing the familiar but ever-changing abstract music found on Elucid's prior records like "I Told Bessie" & with an all-new electronica that sounds almost similar to Divine Styler "Spiral Walls".
More so than any other hip-hop record I've heard of late, Revelator completely abandons the long-standing bases of the genre, the old friends of jazz, blues & funk. It feeds off repeated mantras, drawing power off these refrains.
The two star tracks for me are "Bad Pollen" & "In The Shadow Of If" - Bad Pollen demonstrates how well Elucid can play off his partner-in-arms woods. It's been well overstated, to the length where I feel Elucid gets overshadowed, but this dichotomy provides insight to the record's remainder.
Both rappers give much to think about, but where woods' verbose phrasing inspires thought from a grand comparison to historic events or lifestyle, Elucid's inspires a solemn look inside oneself. His more public affections give way to a more closed perspective in his music, an isolated rumination.
It makes Revelator at large a difficult listen, each track providing a new musing to dissect, but once dissected provides little else. The puzzles formed through unconventional sequencing are interesting but not long-lasting, and tracks that stuck with me trend closer to Elucid's traditional works.
Smaller, snippet-esque tracks such as "Hushpuppies" seem to hold little bearing to a grander meaning at all. Although his efforts throughout are admirable, and incomparable to many other attempts made by artists of his scene, parts of Revelator seem almost lost.
Comments