Atmosphere

Since I am a huge fan of indie rock as well as mainstream hip-hop, indie hip-hop seems like it should have caught on for me at some point. Besides Jurassic 5 and Madvillian, I've never been able to care much about the genre: I don't know if its the pretentiousness, lack of good rhymers, or the lack of aggression that has stopped me.

Because of this, I had low expectations when curiosity finally caused me to purchase an album by the Minnesota duo Atmosphere. Their new record (the impressively titled When Life Gives You Lemons, You Paint That Shit Gold) is spotty and drags at some parts, but it a fun, original album that deserves attention from hip-hop or indie fans. The guest list is impressive: Tom Waits supposedly has something to do with one of the tracks (I'm not sure what) and TV On The Radio's singer make a gorgeous, creepy cameo on "Your Glass House".

My only complaint is the rapping skill is not on par with Jay-Z, Eminem, Outkast, and so on, but this is what has always made indie hip-hop hard to love. A lack of tonal diversity makes the gospel-soul of "Puppets" kind of hard to buy into from a passion standpoint. However, he does keep "Guarantees" driving with just a lone guitar accompaniment, which is no easy feat.

File this one under "good in a moderately interesting way", which is unfortunately true of 90% of the albums I've bought this year. It's the best rap record I've heard in 2008, but there really hasn't been competition yet.