Gangrene
Gutter Water

Written by Dominick. Published: Monday, November 22, 2010.

The last time The Alchemist got up with another emcee for a full length, retail collaboration he and Mobb Deep front man Prodigy issued the rap world a fierce ode to fashioned gangsterism, set to some of the smoothest looped up soul breaks the white guy from Beverly Hills ever chose to tinker with. While we’ve all time and again witnessed what Alan “Alchemist” Maman can do with rap vets from east of the Mississippi, we haven’t heard him go in for a full, original LP with a rhyme assassin from the region he calls home….that is, until now. Along with Stones Throw Records and Oxnard, CA repper Oh No, our boy Al has come forth with his latest and greatest vision for the hardcore genre of Hip-Hop in Gutter Water.

Al and Oh No don’t attempt to ease you into their pulp fiction in any way. They begin with the rousing record “Boss Shit” that instantly lets you know you’ve walked into a mine field of nihilist, don’t give a shit type rhymes. From there we move into the seriously eerie key work of “Not High Enough”, that combined with Oh No’s capable verses prime you properly for the ride ahead. Before we even hit the third cut a number of things are plain as the nose on your face. For one, Alchemist is growing more serious about his forays into rapping. As recently as his last compilation effort Chemical Warfare, we heard his sometimes clumsy attempts at holding down the mic, that in spots could be almost cringe worthy. That’s not the case on Gutter Water. At least not for most of his lines. In fact Al displays a pretty sharpened flow on this record, one that in no way mirrors some of his past, discomfited deliveries. Second big trait that stands out is the production. It’s not at all concerned about people dancing and getting down…rather, it’s a serious pallet for painting a twisted picture of violence, reality and street ethic. A soundtrack for mayhem, if you will.

The title track features a poised Raekwon guest spot laid underneath a superb, horn-infused and soul drenched beat offering. Al and Oh No bring their lyrical “A” games and the result is a very proper emulatation of the process and formula that plays out for the majority of the album. We get a bumpable, yet developed bed of music, accompanied with verses that pay no mind to pop trends or industry acceptable jargon. We just get the raw. I liked “Gutter Water” [the song] for so many reasons…clearly it registers as perhaps the strongest output Oh No and Al had together chemistry-wise too.

I’ll be the first to admonish the message of “Take Drugs” as well as the first to play it at a house party. Al’s bruising, hypnotically psychedelic rhythm hits you like a pulsating reverberation of a gun shot’s kick back. It’s a shame that his verse here just wasn’t up to par (“I stay high like the pussy of a giraffe is”). In this situation he should’ve deferred to Oh No a good deal more, if not totally. Fortunately the next corresponding track, “Chain Swinging” finds Oh and Al falling back into a good measure over one of the strongest beats enclosed on this collection of warped and funked out musical gifts. The cutting and scratching added by former Lootpack member DJ Romes also was well done, if not a bit too brief.

Midway we get the other prime time collaboration effort on Gutter Water in “Wassup Wassup” that makes the most of Al’s L.A. connections by pairing him with 2 of the most sizzling southland wordsmiths of the moment in Fashawn and Evidence. All aspects of how this joint went down were pretty sturdy, but once again Alchemist’s inconsistent emceeing sort of rears it’s head here. Meanwhile, Fashawn also kind of underperformed very uncharacteristically. Evidence definitely carried the water expressively and I’ll say that while it didn’t live up to it’s billing, “Wassup, Wassup” isn’t a total waste thanks to one third of Dilated Peoples.

A huge point of detail that traverses this musical journey with you are all of those perfect lil’ interludes. They add immensely to the listening experience and show the care that Al put into composing…their inclusion helps shape the persona of Gutter Water.

Things progressively get more and more abrupt and sinisterly-themed on the back half of the album. You get swept up in a manically paced and chillingly narrated Roc C performance on “Another Orbit” and then Oh No gives a laudable performance on “Ransom”, a track that bears some absolutely inspiring sound layering while he and Al go back and forth reciting some albeit elementary, yet effective metaphors.

It’s kind of tough to grade Oh No’s overall performance on Gutter Water. At times he seems awfully obscure on many tracks and it doesn’t feel like he’s steering the moods much, but rather just mostly trying to play off Alchemist’s production energy. He does this well in spots, but some of his patent character from past releases of his own unquestionably escapes us. “Standing In The Shadows” is a moment late in the album when Oh No really gets to come into his own and go into storytelling mode. It’s probably one of his top three performances on this LP, the only catch is that we had to wait for twelve other songs to conclude until we got it.

Rounding out a steadfast record we get a stiff 1,2 punch in “Brass Knuckle Rap” and “Not Leaving”, the former featuring Detroit hired gun Guilty Simpson and the latter Big Twins of Infamous Mob, Alchemist’s old homies from his days out in New York. “Brass Knuckle Rap” with the exception of Simpson’s verse is pretty forgettable. It wears that minimalist and quasi-disruptive arrangement to death and halfway in your just anxious to hear the next and final tune. Your rewarded when you hit the track skip as a lavish piano key riff and a uniquely chopped sample flood your eardrums. Oh No and Al finish strongly and Twins also chimes in with an enthused verse of his own.

Okay, so I think Gutter Water may just be safe to drink. The production is focused and Alchemist made a point to maintain his hardcore drive right through to the conclusion. Clearly all his expert rummaging in the Euro progressive rock crates has paid off . Oh No played wing man to Al’s fuzzed out, grimy forethought as well as he could and although I don’t suppose that his deepest personal stamp is contained here, I do think he engaged the “team game” uber well. At the same time as I wholeheartedly applaud and endorse Al’s beat wizardry this time out, I can only give his continued flirtation with rhyming an average to below average mark. He’s come a long way in terms of flow and delivery no question, now he’s just got to sharpen that subject matter and metaphor flippage. Together these two Cali rebels made an adequate album. I wouldn’t call it a classic, but I think it’s one of the better collaboration works we’ve gotten in 2010. Gutter Water may be deficient in it’s appeal to anyone that doesn’t understand the values of uninhibited Hip-Hop, but for those that do understand, it should have a passable amount of replay value. Gangrene is now a force to be reckoned with when discussions of the rawest new duo’s are conversed about.

$17.00 out of $20.00

-Dominick “BIG D O” Ledezma

Category: Reviews