Hey, everyone. Cantthony Saytano here, the internet's busiest music nerd. It's time for a review of this new album from billy woods.

Elusive underground rapper, New York lyricist extraordinaire, veteran of the game at this point, Mr. billy woods. He is back with a new album as he continues to build one of the most consistent but also sprawling discographies in hip hop today.

The pace he's been hitting as of late has just been super prolific, too. In just the past 10 years, if you count all his solo efforts and the albums he's put out within his side duo, Armand Hammer, he's put out about 15 albums, not to mention all the features he's done over that course of time. Also, he runs his own record label with an entire roster of left field rappers and producers.

And artistically, he's been on a really impressive run lately, too. He had that Maps with Kenny Segal record; Aethiopes; a few great Armand Hammer projects, too, one of which was produced entirely by the Alchemist, which is one of many signs we have been seeing recently in billy's career that he's really hit this peak of respect and credibility among his fellow artists in the music community, among creatives who are truly in the know he is an artist's artist.

And I think he's proving the validity of that once again on this latest LP. Now, in some respects on this project, we have the same old billy woods once again as he continues to stick to his guns and hone his lyrical craft. But there are definitely some new mind-blowing envelope-pushing ideas here and there on this record, too.

Now, if I could characterize this record in a nutshell, it does remind me of some of billy's classic works, be it History Will Absolve Me or Today I Wrote Nothing, just a potpourri of disparate ideas as well as reference points that are all pulled together pretty tightly by billy's signature writing and rap style. But if there's anything that makes this latest iteration of that feel a bit different, this is probably one of the most sound-effect heavy releases I think billy has done solo, as he also leans into a series of instrumentals that sound even more like something that would work maybe more in a soundtrack than traditionally a hip hop album, be it on tracks like "Counterclockwise" or the deeply trippy "All These Worlds Are Yours".

billy is one of a few hip hop artists who I think this slight shift in direction could actually work for, as for the most part, I don't think he's just simply a rapper. I don't think describing him just as that is all that accurate. He is very much also a teller of tales, a lyrical painter of pictures. As far as the modern rap landscape is concerned, I very much find billy to be unparalleled when it comes to the details and nuances he conveys when telling us about something as simple as a drug deal, for example.

But on this particular album, it's not simply enough for him to be giving these very in-depth lyrical descriptions of a given situation. No, he needs to be surrounded by music and sounds that make it seem as if he is in the thick of the thing that he is rapping about, like some Rod Sterling, Twilight Zone rap commentarian guiding us through these various dour situations and horrors he describes. Like on the song "Jumpscare", for example, which kicks off with the sound of a film projector turning, some freaky buzzing noises as well as eerie music box melodies that eventually evolve into some hand drums, very minimal bass, and a lot of lyrical descriptions of what seems like the exploitative surroundings of a diamond mine in Africa. billy gives us bar after bar describing all of this while simultaneously acknowledging his own generational connection to colonialism, the context he is in within it: "The English language is violence / I hot-wired it / I got a hold of the master's tools and got dialed in."

The vivid connections, descriptions, and lyricism continue deeper into the album, of course, be it on "Misery", where we get a lot of sultry horn samples and lyrical descriptions of what seems like a very toxic romantic dynamic that billy is very much infatuated with, despite bars like "Ragged holes in my throat / But I love to see those lips shiny with blood."

There's also "Black Xmas" featuring Bruiser Wolf of Bruiser Brigade Fame, who not only lends a great opening verse to the track, but his bars help bolster this image of destitution, including passages from Billy where he's literally describing a family getting kicked out on the holidays by their landlord. If you're looking for some nasty or even sometimes funny landlord bars, billy has got them on this record, including one section of the album where a landlord is trying to boot him out or get him to leave the building so he can make more money off of it. But he keeps coming up with the rent checks because I guess music is doing well enough to keep him where he's living.

Following this, "Waterproof Mascara" is very much a song that is about paranoia, distrust, potentially a death in the family as well. What intensifies all these themes is that laced into the production persistently is the sound of a woman weeping. The weeping is literally chopped up in a way where it's very consistent and almost like rhythm within the beat.

The eerie ascent of instrumentation on "Corinthians" is most definitely a very powerful and cinematic highlight on the record. Also love the Despot feature on that track, the El-P production. Love that Despot continues to be like one of the biggest what-ifs in the underground of hip hop. And one of the few people he will come out of the woodwork for is billy woods to do a feature. But yeah, the biblical references, especially from Despot on this track, are incredible, very thoughtful and loving the almost 2001 Space Odyssey, prog synth horror going on with the production here.

"Maquiladora" is a dissertation on racism in America, told partially through the views of writer and and political philosopher, Frantz Fanon. There are bars on this track where Billy is providing almost like an ideological counterpoint while still agreeing with, obviously, some of his original points, saying, "Fanon dreamed of death every night in the desert / Woke in a hospital bed, CIA handlers gently pressing / Wishing he died out there in the sand bayoneted / He had the wrong answer to the right fucking question."

After this, "A Doll Full of Pins" is a surprisingly soulful and bluesy number with a big sax lead instrumental. Stellar guest vocals from Yolanda Watson, too. And lyrics from billy that tell of a very intense and dark, crazy, insane nightmare that ties into the album's lyrics. Because there's a lot of themes of billy's past and his family and sometimes upbringing on this record. Feelings and experiences and thoughts that he may have had as a kid. There are certainly a lot of themes of going home in one's past on the song "Lead Paint Test", with, after that, many of the album's themes of belonging to a certain place and maybe the African diaspora to an extent being explored on "Dislocated:. This also comes up in a way on the track "Blk Zmby", too, as I think billy does his best to try to describe the mental sickness and psychosis associated with living in a modern era that is so hostile and racist and materialistic and narcissistic, where there's really no community or hope to glean from the context that we're living in.

This is a very dark, very pessimistic album in a lot of respects, which I know, I mean, those are very consistent themes throughout a lot of Billy's records, but he's really leaning into it here for sure.

I will say if there are some downsides to this record, though, it's that some of these more abstract cuts that are leaning more into effects and background space. They do come across more like random one-offs or vignettes than they do like proper actual fleshed-out songs. Not just musically, but lyrically as well, as occasionally I do wish for billy to lean into the picture he's trying to paint a little bit more, make it a bit clearer, or maybe even work toward a stronger point or conclusion with what he's trying to say.

With all of that being said, though, it is very clear billy woods is a man who is haunted by his past, the present to and very much worried about the future as well. There is no context in which this man can think or exist where there is not some dark cloud hanging over him. The display of all of that for billy, I think, is proving to be pretty powerful once again on this record, even if I do think it has one of the choppier flows of his past several albums and is maybe not tied up as succinctly, I guess, which is why I'm feeling a decent to strong 7 on this LP.

Anthony Fantano, billy woods, Forever.