Eyedea & Abilities – By The Throat

In light of the recent unadventurous release by Tom Morello and Boots Riley under the curious moniker of Street Sweeper Social Club, anyone could be left thinking that rap-rock as a genre was dead. Perhaps the last time a decent rap-rock record surfaced was back in 1993 when soundtrack Judgement Night brought iconic rap artists and rock bands together (Sir Mix-a-lot and Mudhoney for example). Since then, there’s been a slew of awkward, rabid rap-metal noise under the guise of Nu Metal, (Frederick Durst et al) and quite awful it was too.Rhymesayers labelmate and fellow Minnesotan P.O.S utilised punk guitars on his 2006 album, Audition, whereas this year’s excellent Never Better LP favours a more straight-ahead hip-hop approach; but Eyedea & Abilities have gone the other way. Forgoing traditional hip-hop loops, Eyedea & Abilities’ third album (their first in five years) slips on an indie-rock costume accessorising with broken guitars and splintered drum beats.By The Throat, much like the title, is a brusque affair. With MC Eyedea vomiting rapid streams of consciousness (likely to represent his writing technique as a battle MC) into the atmosphere, most songs here follow a terse verse, chorus, verse, chorus, end structure that some may not agree is involving enough. Nevertheless, the more optimistic listener may well argue that Eyedea & Abilities are simply dealing in brevity: a brevity that is heavy, occasionally philosophical, and interminably emotional.Whether addressing popular topics such as gun crime on ‘Time Flies When You Have a Gun’ (”You can own it, but mostly it’ll own you, yeah”) or fame on ‘Factory’ (”You’re so sex, you’re so drugs, you’re so rock and roll, you’re so in the moment, you’re so self-centred, you’re so sad because you’re so cliche”), Eyedea & Abilities manage to keep the content fresh by employing an archetypal approach.A grand addition to this originality is the unusual turntable trickery of DJ Abilities who, like Kid Koala, eschews battle records in favour of original instrumentation on wax. The best example of this comes on ‘Spin Cycle’ which boasts highly melodic flares and cuts and is, by a long way, one of the finest scratch solos committed to tape in some time.This level of invention means that By The Throat is an unusual hip-rock record. Embracing the quirky, fucked sounds of anti-folksters like Jeffrey Lewis along with the dirt of Sub Pop groups like Nirvana, this album represents a mature growth in independent hip-hop and is a credible addition to the prestigious Rhymesayers catalogue.Eyedea & Abilities on Myspace