Aesop Rock

Spirit World Field Guide [Rhymesayers Entertainment]

While travel isn’t an option for most of us right now, you could do a lot worse than a metaphysical journey with rapper Aesop Rock on Spirit World Field Guide. Rock’s eighth studio album is a woozy confluence of his lyrical proficiency and skill behind the mixing desk. There are vast synths, crisp drums and creepy 8-bit hooks. These unearthly soundscapes are scattered with mind-bending lyrics; this spirit world is full of bats exploding out a mountain cave and crystal skulls. It’s a hell of a ride.

JJ

Bruce Lee once said, “I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.” That being the case, he probably wouldn’t have fancied meeting AC/DC in a brawl. On their seventeenth studio album, the Australian hard rockers give us 12 entertaining variations on the musical kick that they’ve been working on for decades. You might forget some of the riffs as soon as you’re finished listening, but Brian Johnson’s demonic vocals can still thrill.

JJ