Search - Busdriver :: Jhelli Beam

Tasty Experimental Beats, but Lacking Lyrical Growth

J. Brazil | Los Angeles, CA | 08/29/2009

(4 out of 5 stars)

"I've been a BD fan since Temporary Forever, so I wanted that in the clear before going for the jugular. I love Busdriver's past works. I loved the cerebral drifting of Roadkill Overcoat. I enjoyed the snarky anger of Fear of a Black Tangent and I especially loved the avant garde of The Weather, but Jhelli Beam leaves me longing yet satisfied simultaneously. I'm satisfied because I can totally hear the musically experimental maturity of BDs' work. It's nothing I've heard from him before and I love that he's taking a leap in the right direction.



Still, I am disappointed with Jhelli Beam's lyrical content. Perhaps I am spoiled from the raw power of BD's lyrics from ediT's Crunk de Galle, or heartfelt confusion from Daedelus' 'Something Bells' matching that of Pigeon John or even Etheral Driftwood's eeriness, but most of JB's content makes me feel that Busdriver was digging in the bottom of the creative barrel and just tossing it on a track. This is only with the exception of 'Least Favorite Rapper', which is the best track on the album, in my opinion.



Still, I would recommend Jhelli Beam to long time fans hands down; even BD's less than stellar is leagues better than mainstream's best. As for new listeners, I would recommend Temporary Forever or Fear of a Black Tangent before graduating to Jhelli Beam."

Vinyl Version

mateo gutierrez | New Mexico | 10/01/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This is an amazing album. I just wanted to make it clear that the track listing amazon has up for the vinyl album is not accurate. The songs "Do The Wop", "World Agape", "Unsafe Sextet/Gilded Hearts of Booklovers", and "I've Always Known" are not on the vinyl album. The vinyl does have a track called "Moon Boots" that is not on the cd or download versions.



This doesn't really matter though since the vinyl comes with a code to download the full cd version of the album from Anti's website."

Takes time

Jason Harrington | www.myspace.com/mad_trucker | 09/24/2009

(4 out of 5 stars)

"My praise for this album was not as immediately realized as Roadkill Overcoat, which was a successful effort (albeit over-produced) to pick up the bits and pieces of his audience and bring them together under an umbrella of palatable Busdriver-groomed post-pop. It took me a second to get over the excursions of hearing Busdriver's nasal self-indulgence stripped down to just him and what appears to be simply a progressive drummer, as this experiemnt was chosen for somewhere in the center of the album. I'm sure the art-schoolers who loved Bjork's Medulla were all XOXOXO over that bit, but I like synthesizers and rap that seems to loath rap conventions. I like lyrics so thick that I stand little chance of solving the proverbial puzzle. But I am not someone who is interested in overlooking a smart indie-pop hook either. Anyway, whatever. This is very satisfactory to my brain and subwoofers and surely destined for my year-end list. The previous reviewer suggested quite possibly the most difficult Busdriver albums, Temporary Forever and Fear of a Black Tangent, which is surely where to go for artistic integrity, but I suppose my diagnosis for Jelli Beam is more like a mix of the ballsout deep art of Black Tangent, and the synthesized and sometimes harmonious Roadkill Overcoat. This album is what the universe programmed Busdriver to make though. It's supposed to be just like this. I want to lick his hair and feel gross later. Please rate my review very low, because Least Favorite Rapper is like a normal song to recommend to whoever has reservations about this level of weirdness anyway. Thank goodness most of the humans are replaced already. Sheesh!"