Teeming with curious sounds, solid drums and his unique warbling, RJD2’s newest instrumental offering “The Colossus” is surefire groove music that is abundant with moods and paints mental pictures with ease.
The producer, singer and songwriter invigorates his old Electrical Connections label to release this album after a short hiatus and the results are progressive. Whether you wanted him to tread new ground or stick to the script, one can’t deny that maybe despite a healthy willingness to re-invent the wheel on his LP’s, RJ still decided to come with more familiar sounding material here. This comes much to the delight of fans of his previous works “Since We Last Spoke” and “The Third Hand”
The first real ear opening moment on this outing for me was the expressive keys and transforming arrangement on “Giant Squid”. The funky goodness of the drums matched with the tracks over the top personality was intense and rich. Most of he proceeding tracks production contain that same blueprint; shifting and converting at rapid paces, dope break downs, glossy horn stabs and RJ’s always buoyant drums riding shotgun. I know everone is raving about “Let There Be Horns”, but I feel there’s so much more to this album and frankly better stuff on it too.
Most of the music is highly identifiable with it’s own voice and as a producer that’s exactly what RJ wants. The shortcomings that many will undoubtedly find on “The Colossus” concern RJ’s minorly pitchy and tone dead singing are overshadowed by his gallant experimentation exploits, combining elements of soul, rock and down tempo. I could care less if your a bit off key if your singing over some of the audible treats that RJ crafted. Even with a few noticeable mis-steps in the harmony of his vocals, the man isn’t the worst to try and belt out a few notes.
The feel good anthem “The Glow” would have to get my vote as the all encompassing exhibit of RJ’s musical and vocal dexterity. Well that or “Crumbs Off The Table”….He makes it all sound so effortless, meanwhile a good musician and a good critic knows it’s quite the contrary…Another moment that cannot go un-mentioned is “The Shining”, where RJ’s older sound is blended with a lil’ something new as well as the talents of one Phonte of Little Brother fame who most likely is thee best rapping/singing talent in the game today (yeah I said it, Percy miracles is the best..what!?). “A Son’s Cycle” is the lone track with rapping on it and while it is sort of a break from the rest of the album, it’s still a great creation. Illogic, NP and The Catalyst contribute appropriately to the very solemn and ominous sound without coming off too emo’ish.
For the most part I enjoyed “The Colossus” and still rate RJD2 right up there with masters of Hip-Hop instrumentalism the likes of DJ Shadow and Pince Paul. I don’t know if there is one signature track on the album that will propel him past that very heady company, but I do think that his longtime fans will be adequately satiated with this new work seeing as how they were basically given an album that limited what I’m sure is a boundless amount of experimental ambition on RJ’s part. Instead Mr. Krohn opted to strike more of a balance giving us a solid, albeit predictable album that finds the man who seamlessly molds great beats successfully returning to his old form in pockets.
-Dominick “BIG D O” Ledezma
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