Spank Rock – Everything is Boring and Everyone Is a Fucking Liar

That hip hop has a healthy libido has never been in doubt. Neither is there much room for debate when it comes to the genre’s XXX-rated track record: just check out the moral panic and pathetic court cases whipped up by novelty rappers 2 Live Crew back in the day, or, more recently, Snoop Dogg’s questionable sideline as a porn emperor.

Even so, Philadelphia-based party hip hop collective Spank Rock‘s 2006 debut Yoyoyoyoyo managed to hit new heights. Or lows, depending on your viewpoint. The bars busted out by MC Naeem Juwan – or Kool Disco MC Spank Rock, as he’s to be addressed when clutching a mic – were lewd enough to make a seasoned pornographer blush. The frankly inane obsession with aural porn overshadowed the considerable merits of the music, a disorientating, raucous and electrifying array of good times noise built on an innovative, genre-hopping cocktail of ideas old and new that dodged clichés as doggedly as the lyrics persevered with booty-obsessed knuckle-dragging.

It’s been five long years since: several lifetimes in the party banger circles. In the meantime, younger, even less subtle shock merchants ala Tyler, The Creator have upped the ante of outrage considerably. Wisely, Everything is Boring and Everyone’s a Fucking Liar – got to love that title – doesn’t try to match the juvenile competition. The odd lapse into familiar territory (‘Hot Potato’) aside, this long-delayed second album – largely produced by Berlin-based electro wizard Boyz Noise – comes across as a concentrated effort to evolve.

Musically, it succeeds. After the sensory overload of Yoyoyoyoyo, the minimalist, ominously hushed bounce of opener ‘Ta Da’ -think ‘Drop It Likes It’s Hot’ with a worse attitude – is a revelation. And that’s before you note the verses stay almost entirely above the beltline. The more predictably party-orientated ‘Nasty’ is equally striking, a stripped-to-the-bone concoction that’s intoxicating enough to withhold one of the album’s few trips through familiar triple-X rated territory, courtesy of an almost heroically idiotic guest spot from Big Freedia. And the surprises keep on coming. Santogold-featuring ‘Car Song’s is an infectiously bouncy pop gem, whilst excellent first single ‘Energy’ samples unlikely dancefloor-baits in the form of Krautrock giants Can with winning results. ‘No. 1 Hit’ straddles an excellent plastic dancehall riddim and ‘Baby’ smacks of an electronically updated Prince.

Then the doubts kick in. Lines such as “cruising in my limousine, I often meet the ass queens” suggest that with a self-enforced sex ban in place, Juwan hasn’t got that much to say besides knackered hip hop clichés: living well beyond the usual means of an underground hipster hip hop figure, dissing the opposition, slow-grinding on the dancefloor. The musical adventurism also turns into a potential problem. With Sam Spiegel and original Spank Rock beats engineer XXXChange also popping in on production duties, Everything is Boring and Everyone is a Fucking Liar ultimately comes off as a bit of a smörgåsboard of style exercises, with little in terms of unifying themes or moods. A welcome rethink, in other words, but one that’s not been thoroughly thought through.