After a bit of a discussion on the blog's Facebook page a few weeks back, I finally got around to write this review of sole's latest record A Ruthless Criticism of Everything Existing. What the discussion basically centered around was my opinion that I was tired of sole's revolutionary image that I think is a bit over exeggerated and that I was wishing to hear some good music from him. I know, perhaps a bit immature, but everyone's entitled to their opinion. I used to be a huge fan of his music from around 2001 when I first heard his album Bottle of Humans. After that, he released some truly great music such as Selling Live Water, Live from Rome and a couple of installments of mansbestfriend. I thought for a long time that here's an artist that can't do no wrong, but unfortunately then it was time for sole and the skyrider band. From then on he stopped shining if you ask me. He turned to more live productions, simplified his rhyme style and started, at times, to make really hideous tracks featuring autotune and so on. I would also like to point out that I give him full respect for going his own way. After all, everyone develops in different directions, and musically he went along with a bit, in my opinion, more commercial sound.
First I wasn't even going to listen to A Ruthless Criticism of Everything Existing. I couldn't really see the point. There are too much interesting music out there being released, so why bother about someone I wasn't feeling anymore. But after the before mentioned discussion, I sat down and listened to the album really hard. I wanted to give it an honest review and therefor I listened to it over and over again for a couple of days.
So, what's my verdict? Well, I have to give him huge props for sticking to his guns and delivering intelligent lyrics dealing with the fucked up world that we all face everyday. He stands up for what he believes in, and is doing his thing for sure. So lyrically I don't really have too much to complain about this time. There are a few phrases that makes me cringe, but I find that on most records so that's ok. If I have any issues with the album, then it's the majority of the productions. Some of them are quite good, but most of them are way too much electronic pop for my taste to truly work for me. With that being said, it feels like he's starting to find a balance between the commercial side, and the more rough and dirty one. All in all, I feel that this is the best record sole has released in quite a while. There are a few tracks on it that I skip on every listen (Last Earth and Animal for example), but tracks such as Inferno, Assad is Dead and Non Workers of the World saves the day. So I'm the first to admit this, sole is still able to make good songs. Will probably never be a big fan again, but he doesn't need me anyway.
Rating: 6/10
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