In the late ought-two, touring in support of their Themselves opus The
No Music., manic-mouth'd-MC/run-amok-egotist Doseone and
ace-beatmaker/humble-bloodnut Jel roped in four other humans to help
them flesh out a Themselves band. Long gone from the days when the duo
were just Them, and when they were just a hip-hop-ish outing of
producer/lyricist, the Themselves band proved such a lovable lark that
they quickly forged ahead into a new post-tour existence as
fully-fledged entity, Subtle. Making their debut on this Lex-issued
disc, the combo finds Dose's familiar lyrical riffing and nasal pseudo-crooning
buried not in the fug of four-track tape-hiss of Clouddead's first missive, but,
instead, amidst a wide range of
"musical" sounds; Subtle's subtle song-crafting is as much about tuned
percussion, looming keytone, ever-present melodica, and aggressive
beatmaking as it is about Doseone's lively lyricism. Back with that
Themselves outing, this pair of Anticonvicts essentially severed their
ties to underground hip-hop with a structural and conceptual finality;
and, so, now that we know that they're making art, all of Subtle's
particular flights of fancy, moments of whimsy, and various excursions
into the dense and difficult-to-decipher are easy to consume, topped off
with a grain of salt that helps the fibre go down. A New White. is
meat-and-potatoes without the meat, its mocking race-related title
speaking of such starchy ideas, this a disc that is sure that it is good
for you. And, as always, Dose has lots of wonderful things to say, but,
with this being a band an all, his vocals retreat even further into the
milling music than they ever have before, his voice simply another
"instrument" in their palette, and thus usually mixed at about the
same level as the melodica. Whilst this intention is noble — even
working well on songs like "Eyewash," where the digital flickers, on
opening, seem to have been inspired by Icelandic elfin-electro
scribblers Múm — it also means that the album kinda suffers in
comparison to recent outings by Dose (ex-?) pals like Buck 65 or Why?,
who've used increasingly adventurous musical backings to make their
lyrical delivery seem even more vivid.
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