If you have been following my blog at all the first few months of it’s existence, you have seen my most anticipated music of 2009. One of those albums has dropped making my wait for some good music not to bad, only the 2nd month of the year. The disc is from P.O.S., a Minneapolis based rapper. For those that don’t know him, he started out with punk-rock at a younger age. He started doing hip-hop here and there, playing small shows, and he ended up having quite a bit of fun with it. Not only did he have fun with it, he was pretty good. Never Better is the 3rd L.P. in P.O.S.’ career. His first two albums were stellar front to back with some of my favorite hip-hop songs ever. P.O.S. is on of the few rappers out there who still sound unique to me. At times his vocals do sound a little like Eminem, but he mixes it up well, singing, screaming and rapping… sometimes all on one track. His production is also unique. There are a lot of live instruments sprinkled throughout his albums. He samples rather heavy guitar from groups like Underoath. Mix his vocal variety with a punk approach to production and you have something different from the mainstream.
Thankfully I didn’t post this review when I first planned to. After my first two listens I wasn’t digging it. My first listen was while playing a video game and the second listen while at work. Then came the third go round. I put on my headphones, turned on my Zune and laid back with nothing but the music to pay attention to. It was this listening session that made everything click for me. While listening in the background, I missed so many of the intricacies of the production. There are layers upon layers of strings, beats, live drums, vocal sampling. If you don’t pay attention your going to miss what makes this album so good.
Video for Drumroll (We’re all Thirsty)
