Busdriver

Hip Hop / Ghettotech

Billboard

In the tenuous fringes of what can be deemed ‘rap’ there lies the reviled LA maverick, Busdriver. Who for years has been wowing unsuspecting audiences with his patented visceral onslaught of rants, rhyming and displaced musical sensibility. Whether sitting-in with unlikely cohorts such as; Islands, Daedelus, Z-Trip, TTC, Boom-Bip, 2mex etc., or plowing through his enthralling solo sets, there is a distinct brand of showmanship employed and at least a handful of concert-goers who are maladjusted enough to submit to the shear unadulterated thrill ensued.

Unrelenting touring and the willingness to embrace the transient nature of the road gives way to the title of his 5th solo album and Anti/Epitaph debut, RoadKillOvercoat, arguably BD’s most ambitious yet infectiously catchy effort to date. When asked what has been the personal impact of his modern-day troubadour lifestyle, BD states, “ I lament that I have become a serial-dater ” and that “ even when I’m home and off tour, I find myself loading-in at random venue at 6 o’clock sharp,(and) calling promoters that don’t exist ”.

The more apparent impact is shown in the contents of the new record, which boasts a depth and stadium-sized bombast that has only been hinted at in previous BD releases. Production on the record is masterfully tackled by L.A.’s own beat champion DJ Nobody (Plug Research, Ubiquity) and multi-instrumentalist/programming whiz, Boom-Bip (Lex). The songs themselves seamlessly leap from the inadvertent club-banger, “Kill Your Employer (Recreational Paranoia is the Sport of Now)”, accented with sneering criticisms towards the innocuous left-winger, all the way to the psychedelic onslaught of “Secret Skin” and it’s almost hokey optimism. This time around BD wields the pop song framework, beats it into submission and interjects his skittish sense of the absurd. No song in BD’s catalog displays that more then the 80’s rock-tinged tour-de-force, ”Sunshowers”; which tallies the inconsistencies in the bohemian lifestyle of the art school grad and the sub-par works that it gives way to.
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