Subtle recorded for hero: for fool at a higher-priced studio than their last disc, A New White, or their four home-recorded "finding ourselves" EPs, and boy, did they do their inflated budget justice: The instruments are vivid, the beats are harder, and the slow parts never just kinda...drift off on you, the way they have in the past. On A New White, Subtle leader Doseone's rhymes sometimes drifted into subliminal messages, and the five guys behind him would follow along into the fog, giving you a kind of resting space where Dose could talk directly to your subconscious. In other words, you could space out-- or maybe it was the music spacing out on you. But this time, the lights are on, no detail gets lost, and no matter how cerebral it may be, the whole thing's so loud that it bangs your head for you. Welcome to Subtle's major label debut.
for hero: for fool's relentless pace will feel familiar to anyone who's witnessed their incredible live set. Dose is one of the tightest frontmen on the road right now, whether he's stalking the stage or yanking plastic utensils out of a black-and-white-striped skull, he's a constant stream of jerky, just-right gestures, and you can practically hear all of them on this recording. The mic is in love with Dose no matter what he's doing, from the paper airplane high notes to the deep percussive grunts-- though the words move so fast that you won't appreciate any of the lyrics until you can sit down and read them, preferably someplace quiet. Too soon to tell if America at large is ready for Dose's poems, his intricate imagery, or his ongoing story about a rapper named Hour Hero Yes. (That's the guy with the black-and-white skull.) But here, he's nailing what fellow motormouth Busdriver once dubbed "stadium rap": The words aren't dumbed down, but the crowds will come for the sheer calesthenics of their tongue-work.
The first four tracks lunge off the album, from the tight interplay of beats and staccato rhymes on "A Tale of Apes II" to the guitar riff on "Middleclass Stomp" that splits the difference between hard rap and hard rock. Far more intense and less-- wait for it-- subtle than anything they led us to expect, the album starts to pace itself by track five, delivering a deft combination of the polished electronics of the 13 & God project and the harsher fuzz of Themselves. The intricate glitches and big synth swaths sound like they were programmed, not with a laptop, but on rice paper punch cards-- and then they melt into power chords and cavernous live drums that could've been taped in a bar band rehearsal space.
But while you're trying to pick out the details, the main impression is that it's loud. You would never know from his cameos that they have a full-time cellist (who sounds like he's bowing with a razor on "Middleclass Stomp"). And as clearly as the music comes across, most of the lyrics rush by without even a stray word or image catching your ear, and the slower songs like "Call to Dive" especially suffer from sounding so opaque. And where the top songs on A New White, "I Heart L.A." and "F.K.O.", had a sweet, mixed-up innocence and introspection, the first single here is "The Mercury Craze", which is fast, crazy-catchy, and so manic you can almost hear their teeth chattering.
For four EPs and one LP, Subtle didn't sound like a cohesive unit so much as six guys in a cloud of possibilities. Now they've grabbed one or two directions and made their strongest disc to date-- but I still don't know what this band's about. You could assume a lot about this album from what was happening in their lives when they made it. The band almost broke up after the van accident that left keyboardist and central inspiration Dax Pierson paralyzed, and that cut short their first national tour. Then Dose and guitarist/drummer Jordan Dalrymple locked themselves in the studio and started making demos again, and gradually brought in the other four-- including Dax-- to finish a new album. Pierson is still a part of the band, and a part of this disc; he contributes vocals, and that's him, pre-accident, beatboxing and playing piano during the final song. But the chemistry has changed, the music is harder, the frustration's more palable, and you can hear that this is some kind of a make-or-break moment. And this time they made it-- just. I can't wait to hear who they become on the next one.
