David Banner

MTA2: Baptized In Dirty Water

(Universal)

David Banner lives in a world where the marks of oppression are still clear as day and hip-hop never scaled the heights of marketability. It’d be a mistake to slot his music alongside more pedestrian bids for mass appeal. Last year’s Mississippi: The Album would have sounded curiously wrong to heads raised on boom-bap, full of blues chords and unearthly bass tones grafted to low-riding drums so nuanced they bordered on expressionistic. But with Outkast as crunk music’s ambassadors, few probably listened anyway. Suitably, Banner makes jams above all for himself, his crew, his hometown, the bitter South.

Banner’s sequel embodies the redemptive themes of its predecessor. At times MTA2’s spiteful rhymes and often tuneless tunes uncomfortably evoke thoughts of slavery—functional, slow and relentless like dirges, with scarred chants serving as choruses. There’s little time for bling-bling hedonism; at best Banner and clique wallow in their grim depravity with a smirk. Crunk ballads (!) such as “My Lord” are overshadowed by workhorse tracks like “Crank It Up” and the “Like A Pimp” remix. If the first Mississippi: The Album was cathartic and empowering, then this one only finds relief in a dull sort of violence.

Ready to collapse under its own weight, MTA2 would be utterly dreary without Banner’s acute skill on the boards—check “Talk To Me,” whose clenched modem whine actually carries a hypnotic melody buried underneath the buzz. The music and message offer few answers outside of blind faith, but manage to turn things beautifully awry.

—Ryan J. Kuo

Preston School of Industry

Monsoon

(Matador)

A few years ago, ex-Pavement guitarist Spiral Stairs released All This Sounds Gas, a wonderfully post-indie record that was equal parts Neil Young and early U2. Comprised of shaky-yet-deeply-felt lyrics and guitar lines that lazily pointed at the sky without ever gathering the momentum to soar, the music lodged in the brain despite its modest ambitions.

Unlike Gas, this year’s outing, Monsoon, never really shakes the feeling of aimlessness. According to the liner notes, the album “was recorded in a dark unfinished basement.” Perhaps this is some justification for Mr. Stairs’ wandering songwriting that chugs along on a predictable guitar strum.

One of the best things about Gas was that it definitively wasn’t a Pavement album. The same cannot be said of Monsoon. Though Stairs rarely achieves Malkmus’ free association lyricism, his decidedly indie delivery is couched in undistinguished material that sounds like Pavement B-sides. There are some more upbeat moments: “Caught In The Rain” features one of Stairs’ bummed-yet-cheery choruses while “Line It Up” musters a strut that the rest of Monsoon only gestures towards.

Stairs has written an album with an elegant air of vague melancholy, but it never entirely delivers on its promise. “So Many Ways,” with its wistful chorus of “So many ways, so many ways…to lie about this,” is the emotional high point of an album painted in quiet tones. Monsoon may grow on you, but only if you have the time to wander down into Stairs’ basement.

—Andrew R. Iliff

The Walkmen