Review Summary: Randy Savage the fools.
There's a precarious balance between the 4.5 and 5.0 here. It's probably the biggest jump in quality an artist can achieve to the reviewer, and it takes confidence in the reviewer to stick to their guns on it.
I've got full confidence that in two years, five years, and ten years, I'll still consider
Never Better an essential album.
Evoking the imagery of a grey winter day, raining, too warm to snow but too cold to be comfortable, the disparate beats have a downtrodden, raw quality. They wrap around the clever rapid fire lyrics like a damp jacket, the only thing shielding the serpentine bits of language from a harsh outside world.
P.O.S himself is a maestro of the lyrical potshot, hitting everyone he possibly can (even down to Wal-Mart which is, admittedly, an easy target) in a fashion that sounds effortless and natural.
I mean, the guy turns Randy Savage into a
verb and references
The Big Lebowski twice. In the same song.
Far from painting himself into the emo-rap corner,
P.O.S represents himself in a manner that should put him on par with other clever-as-f*ck MC's as
Immortal Technique and
Del the Funky Homosapien, and he holds his own easily even against those juggernauts. The entire album is taut and has a constant, tangible tension of dangerous poundage, like the thread holding the whole thing together is a few moments of pressure away from snapping and sending the entire project into the can. But it never does, and despite the chop shop flavoring of tracks like "Get Smokes",
P.O.S holds together everything with the skill of a veteran artist, despite the fact he only has two other releases under his belt.
The thick punk influence may turn some off, but I think it's a refreshing concoction. Punk and hip hop have quite a few similar threads in common... I'm surprised nobody's tried to fuse them like this before.
Expertly crafted and executed,
Never Better is the shining city on the hill for hip hop. It shows a future down an entirely different path for artists brave enough to try and blaze the trail. Clever, balanced, sometimes pretty funny, sometimes bleak, and catchy as all hell.
In Short: You're out of your element, Donnie, shut up.
