Rob Sonic Sabotage Gigante

There's something downright creepy about Def Jux, El-P's madhouse of gritty futurist independent as fuck hip hop. As individual acts in a different context, the artists on the labels might appear as refreshing, confrontational voices in the pop landscape, carrying Public Enemy's torch into the new millennium with uncompromising, hard poet reporters broadcasting the apocalypse we so often pretend is not happening. Put them under the same umbrella, and there's an eerie similarity of presentation and preoccupation that makes the artists blur together, different modifications of the same hyper-intelligent b-boy robot labouring under the massive shadow of El Producto. Brandishing similar spoken sneer cadences and jet black senses of humour, they comprise a unique little boutique of revolutionary Stepford emcees.

I'm not sure if that's criticism or not, as that particular Def Jux feel is not by any means a bad thing, and the label has dropped an altogether unfair number of post-millennial classics already (El-P's solo albums, Cannibal Ox's The Cold Vein, not coincidentally helmed by the label head/mascot). When you get to somebody like Aesop Rock, though, the aesthetic becomes polarizing, obnoxiously mind-blowing to some, oppressively annoying to myself and others. A guy like Rob Sonic either prospers by association and like a glove conformity with this environment, or diminishes amidst similar but more outsized personalities. His new album is rock solid but never transcendent, and although he handled all of the production himself, with minimal rhyme assistance from the aforementioned Rock and Busdriver on one cut each, it is difficult not to see him as a little brother to El-P's native tongue. Even the title, Sabotage Gigante, sounds a little bit like a knock-off or parody of the more evocative and bracing word combination Fantastic Damage.

Take a track like Dead as Disco. With its propulsive, shuffling rhythm and busy clutter of noise and chatter refusing to let up, it is a perfectly respectable and invigorating slab of raw NYC hip-hop. With its wilfully excessive scratch stabs and synths sneaking into the racket, however, it recalls El-P's Dead Diznee, except a good deal less reckless and laser damaged. Perhaps I'm just averse to that title, copping an expression that I've never agreed with the conceit of. When he slows down his driving flow on Fat Man and Little Boy, the seams begin to show in the Rob Sonic variation on Caucasian Def Jux Rapper Sneer Speak, and the tone is too affected and forced to function.

The comparisons are perhaps unfair to harp on, but its a chore to avoid such thoughts, and Sabotage Gigante fails to offer enough that is distinctive within the Def Jux bubble to dismiss such thoughts. The album will doubtlessly be much more novel and impressive to a listener unfamiliar with the brand name, but how many of those people are going to stumble onto Rob Sonic. Regardless, the man is undeniably multi-talented, both rapping and producing with enough skill and invention to uphold the high level of quality control at Def Jux that has emboldened listeners like me to pick at such a well crafted record. Rob Sonic just never stops feeling like more of a passionate craftsman than an artist, failing to take risks and deliver highs and lows, coasting on a reliable formula of updated and scorched boogie down Bronx beats, unrelenting delivery, and sarcastic singsong half choruses delivered in the same urban monotone. There's only the occasional track, like The Over Under, where it all works spectacularly instead of just acceptably. Sabotage Gigante is a good album, but decidedly not a departure or key release for the label it fits so well on. If you've heard of it, and have a suspicion as to how much you might like it, you're probably right.