XL CD REVIEWS

Clipse, the Summer Wardrobe

Monday, November 27, 2006

Clipse

'Hell Hath No Fury'

(Jive)

Well, that took forever. "Hell Hath No Fury" has been hip-hop's version of Guns N' Roses' "Chinese Democracy," the album that was promised again and again, only to disappear over the horizon.

The wait is over. For four years, the follow-up to Malice and Pusha T's 2002 cocaine-obsessed debut "Lord Willin' " sat on the shelf. In that time, coke roared back to life as rap's metaphor de jour, fueling rhymes from Houston to New York, from El Lay to what's left of "Nawlins."

After all, crack cocaine is one of the most popular and influential consumer products of the past 30 years, laying waste to everything in its path in favor of monomaniacal desire. As such, it's a handy metaphor for self-made opportunity (the deeply creepy "Keys Open Doors"), status struggles (the single "Mr. Me Too," the steel-drum inflected "Wamp Wamp"), the everyday nature of money-driven violence ("Momma I'm Sorry") and the relentless nature of capitalism at its most pure (pretty much every coke-themed rap song by anyone ever).

Produced with detail and swagger by Clipse's childhood pals, the Neptunes, "Hell" is that rarest of birds, the hip-hop album that absolutely lives up to the hype. Malice and Pusha T manage to transcend their all-coke-alla-time roots through the lyrical dexterity that propelled the Clipse's 2005 place-holding mixtape "We Got It For Cheap 2" onto dozens of year-end Top 10 lists.

They know it, too, with Pusha T pushing everyone but Biggie "Big Poppa" Smalls: "No hotta flow droppa since Poppa/ you penny ante (expletive), see, I know copper."

They spend stupid on "Wamp Wamp" ("I get paper, it seems I get foolish/ Take it to Jacob and play "Which hue's the bluest") and shout out the University of Texas (among other state landmarks) on the Houston-sounding "Trill."

Appropriately, "Hell's" math is unforgiving: Two men times two producers plus 12 songs in 45 minutes equals the year's most powerful hip-hop album. —Joe Gross

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The Summer Wardrobe

Self-titled

(Rainbow Quartz Records)

Austin's Summer Wardrobe — singer-guitarist Jon Sanchez, John Leon on pedal steel, drummer George Duron and bassist Marty Hobratschk — incorporates its previous "Sometimes Late at Night" EP into a self-titled full-length debut to yield one of the finest melancholic dream pop releases of 2006.

Sanchez's prowess as a frontman and lead guitarist is singular as it weaves together flourishes of 1960s psychedelic rock, broader strokes of 1970s pop and crestfallen vocal melodies that at once sound original and faintly familiar.

Clocking in at more than 10 minutes, "Outcry in the Barrio" is the album's pièce de résistance. Moody instrumental intrigue crescendos over five minutes before a well-crafted melody and harmony — between the pedal-steel guitar and vocal line — claim the forefront.

A few songs from Sanchez's previous Austin space-rock band the Flying Saucers, including "Starball Contribution" and the plaintive "One More Try" get a Summer Wardrobe revision. "Redbook" — also a Saucers' number — is an understated gem that shows Sanchez's gift for penning country standards is just as strong as his rock compositions.

This one of those albums that inexplicably sounds sonically heightened when played during the darkened hours between sunset and sunrise; it will make the perfect soundtrack to your next overnight drive through West Texas, preferably under the Marfa lights.

— V. Marc Fort