EL-P: I'll Sleep When You're Dead

Label: Def Jux

This was the best hip-hop record of 2007, and the best underground rap album I’ve heard in years. The driving, propulsive rhythms are sick – no other way to put it – unrelenting and catchy as hell (when was the last time we had that to say about a rap album?), and El-P’s rapping is simply on another level of sophistication altogether. Perhaps El-P’s greatest skill is as a producer, and his work on I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead is outstanding, opening the record with a funny and ominous quote from Twin Peaks before launching the explosive “Tasmanian Pain Coaster” – six-plus minutes of pure fury. The rest of the album is seamlessly blunt and unyielding, yet another forceful voice decrying injustice in these militaristic times (check out his duet with Cage on “Habeus Corpus” in particular). It’s been five long years since El-P dropped us a new album of originals (2002’s Fantastic Damage was his last), and his new record couldn’t be more welcome, reminding us of what made the genre so vital and alive in the first place. (Ralph)