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***"Iraq ain't lookin' so good-- but the mothafuckin' club is crunk!" (from "atheist jihad") And so sole reemerges roughly two years after the aestheic and critical breakthrough of his second album, Selling Live Water, having moved to Spain, married, and continued to refine his inimitable blurring of sarcasm and bone-dry honesty. The lion's share of the music is, like Selling Live Water, laid down by odd nosdam and alias, but sole has noticeably changed: the enflamed and verbose jeremiads of Selling Live Water have cooled slightly into a more reflective-- and effortlessly funny-- simmer. Live from Rome, recorded and produced both in Oakland, California, and Barcelona, Spain-- no, it's not a live recording-- has heavier hooks and a noticeably broader palette, moving from upbeat, half-serious vegan anthems to the half-kidding faux Eminem. Though sole still isn't going to peddle a million records to the red states, his effort to place the personal and self-critical in the big and political helps him avoid singing to the choir; Alternative Press has noted that his "willingness to lyrically bust caps in the asses of the left as well as the right make him a fairly revolutionary revolutionary." Live from Rome is a lyric volley of shots taken, but it's thankfully lightened by his humor and ultimately made compelling by the beats-- a rare mixture of the dynamic and the raw. Taken altogether, this very well may be one album worth surviving the future ruins of the new and improved Rome. |
