4 out of 5

Label: Rhymesayers

Produced by: Aesop Rock

Themes help and hurt albums. Musically a theme can absolutely tie an experience together, but it can also of course be limiting; it helps if you’ve got the chops to make space within a space – to slice a sound up in countless ways. Lyrically the plus / minuses are much the same, but almost more stringent: if you’re saying the same thing in different ways, it’s not as rewarding; and if you step outside of the theme… well, there should be some thematic reason for that.

Skelethon, musically, surpasses judgment on the first. If the portmanteau of the title somewhat suggests a community-fueled resurrection, that follows through in the sounds, blending classic beats with new wave bleeps – Aesop’s first large step into the very unique, immediate but chill sound that would typify his later production efforts, on his own or for others, mushing the nostalgic and weighty with the modern and airy. For the most part, Skelethon leans heavily on the former, enhanced by the latter, which is where the album gets a little shaky when it comes to its lyrical themes.

This was apparently a turbulent time for Rock, having been through a divorce and a label change, and there’s this very clear desire to explore that directly and indirectly, kind of questioning what the line is between living one’s life and just following its flow; again, the old and the new, but here the decision on which side of that has more merit is very grey. Aes runs those thoughts through observations of the world around him, and through past memories, chopped up in his usual brilliant stew of seeming non sequitors that have a ton of relevance once you sit there and study them. Which I think one shouldn’t be afraid to do: the amount of casual references but also personal ones that Rock tosses in makes the lyrics something of an Easter egg hunt, but his skill as an emcee is such that this stuff never seems too try-hard backpacky or impenetrable. The portmanteaus are neverending, but a few wiki lookups send you down a track that you can match to feelings that are already very apparent.

However, as the album dives deeper and more cynical, getting to the initially bleak but then hopeful story of Ruby ’81 and the dark blur of Crows ’81 – which stretches stylistic wings to include a monotone delivery by Kimya Dawson, a rather brilliant move in that it doesn’t fit at all but absolutely fits – we get to a point where most of this concept has been explored, and until we get to the confessional, powerful closer of Gopher Guts, Rock has to cycle through some sillier remember-when workouts (Racing Stripes) and more lighthearted expressions of mid-life crises rememberances (Grace). Yes, the album needs some light, but there’s something somewhat offputting about songs that can kind of just skim the subject matter (Homemade Mummy), regardless of how individually good their beats or rhymes are.

I feel like these moderately dueling aesthetics – the more dialed in first half; the tracks that are more geared towards smiles or battles – are evident in what ended up as bonus material on the deluxe edition: these two tracks with, separately, Rob Sonic, and Rob Sonic and Blueprint, are bangers, but they’re also fun – perhaps easier stuff to write than those that leave the listener questioning instead of smiling.

But, as always, this is me digging in to what makes stunning work just slightly less stunning. AR’s rhymes are never not interesting, and his beatmaking here, when paired with the slightly bouncier followup The Impossible Kid, really represents two sides of a kind of pinnacle of his style. Skelethon, in other words, is a landmark release in what was already – and would continue to be – an impressive career, showing incredible maturity in the artist’s approach as the world around him, as ever, kept changing.