Review Summary: teeter
On a day-to-day basis, it’s hard to work a 9 to 5 job and dream about much else besides progression – getting richer, more popular, or having to work less. The side effect of this is that the past self becomes something to throw away and disdain. Now I wonder when I’m going to look back at the person I was half a year ago and not think I was a clueless, destructive idiot.
Shows I love like Trailer Park Boys and Bojack Horseman work partially on their focus on characters who spiral into more shi t than more people can imagine in their lifetimes. It’s hard not to watch them and feel a bit better about yourself. I guess that’s where SCUMBAG comes in: it’s a record of stagnation at the lowest level of mental survival.
On SCUMBAG, Bones raps about wandering a wasteland of numbness and decay. The beats move from slow cloud-rap soundscapes to slow cloud-rap soundscapes with hit hats or auxiliary synth lines. Nothing much changes over the record – the music morphs between glacier and chasm while Bones gently modulates the way he depicts his despondence.
And yet, Bones’ appeal survives the darkness that surrounds it because he places himself in a position of both personal and sonic power. Connections with romantic possibilities are taken for granted and drugs flow like milk and honey. The beats are intoxicatingly catchy and atmospheric; the hooks that accompany them create a hypnotic system that’s hard to break out of. Bones appears to have it all, and even when he asserts that having everything is bull***, it’s such a break from the everyman unfulfillment of familiar life that his music can’t help but feel like a vacation.
The result is a record that constantly talks of depression, suicide and violence that feels closer to peace than conflict. Question: is it fine to listen to a rap record where overdose suicide pacts are the norm if it helps you feel less like committing your own. It’s not exactly a pointless thing to ask. But it’s difficult to tell whether SCUMBAG wants us to ask it or just fall in.
