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Non-Prog CD Reviews

The West Ghost Son of Sorrow Review by Gary Hill This is really quite an unusual release. It has a lot of the standard hip hop trappings, but there is a lot more than that here. A trippy, almost ambient electronic music vibe is heard on a lot of the music. There is a real art rock element at play. This is unusual and intriguing for sure. Most hip hop earns parental advisories for the lyrics. This is not an exception. This review is available in book format (hardcover and paperback) in Music Street Journal: 2016 Volume 3 at lulu.com/strangesound.

Track by Track Review

Don’t Look At Me I dig the bits of scratched record sound at the start of this. The music as it moves forward is very much electronic related. It’s echoey and cool. A more rhythmic energy joins. The raps come in stabbing lines a lot of the time. This is classy stuff, quite artsy in a lot of ways.

Bleeding Blue (Color Trip) Another that starts electronic and artsy, there is a real trippy sound at the beginning of this piece. As it works to more rocking hip hop territory, the rap has a unique vibe. That lends a cool angle to it. This is another that’s very classy.

Worthless In a lot of ways this has more energy than the songs that preceded it. Perhaps it’s a bit less artsy, too. It’s no less cool, though. In fact, this might be my favorite piece here. The music and the rap both work extremely well. And, they go a long ways toward complementing one another.

Ugly The final cut, like the first one, starts with the sounds of a scratched record. It’s another that’s very electronic and artsy. This is the runner up for best track of the set. It just has such a cool flow to it. It’s almost like a merging of electronic moody modern prog and hip hop.

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