Dead

Vinyl LP pressing. 2014 album from the Edinburgh trio. Young Fathers craft Pop songs disguised as Psychedelic Hip Hop disguised as an improvised explosive device. Three musicians comprise the bomb squad: Alloysious Massaquoi, Kayus Bankole, and G Hastings. They are Scottish of African descent, outsiders by constitution and temperament. Comparisons have been made to Shabazz Palaces, but that analogue does not quite properly fit. Young Fathers have no ancestors. They just slap the listener with concussive bass, rugged sonic layering, and jagged harmonies stacking up like scar tissue. The sounds are scuffed and f*cked up; your ears are filled with funky poison. Dead is a blur of instantaneous jams and vocal ideas. Words stick out like lost limbs in quicksand. Synthesizers soar like toxic birds. The percussion alternately cracks skulls and does miniature riffs to ribcages.