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A Storm of Light have a band name that sounds like the title of a Neurosis album, which is fitting considering that the guy at the center of the group, Josh Graham, used to do Neurosis’s visuals and was until recently in Red Sparowes, who started out on Neurot Recordings. This project takes Neurosis-derived atmospheric metal, slows it down to sub-doom tempos, and adds some proggy space-outs. Everything sounds like it’s in slo-mo–syrupy drums, guitars that collide like tectonic plates, and Graham chanting (on the nine-minute-plus “Black Ocean”) “We will kill / For blood and money.” Seriously. Heavy.
Lateef the Truth Speaker and the Gift of Gab getting together in the Mighty Underdogs sounds like a can’t-lose proposition, and when the MCs let themselves relax everything’s fine. But they had to go and drop some bullshit lines about “when music used to mean something”–as though there isn’t plenty of meaningful music happening now. And indie hip-hop doesn’t need any more cautionary tales and/or morality plays about young chicks who get hooked on drugs and turned out. (What’s up with backpackers and their obsession with crack hoes?) The duo’s Kool Keith-style turn on “Science Fiction” and some killer cameos (Lyrics Born, the inimitable MF Doom) help redeem the record, and the live-band-heavy production by Headnodic–a merger of 70s psych rock and 70s funk–could stand just fine on its own.
