LIFESAVAS SPIRIT IN STONE QUANNUM PROJECTS

When listening to a hip-hop album (and I mean hip-hop), you’re searching for that perfect synthesis: dope, soulful boom-bap beats to make your head nod and a charismatic MC providing one-line chuckles and/or song-long anecdotes. The unfortunate albums are those with one or the other; the truly confusing ones are those like Spirit in Stone, the latest from Portland neo-backpack clique Lifesavas. As wordsmiths, MCs Vursatyl and Jumbo are more than competent, dropping lyrical tongue twisters on every track in their concise staccato flows. And you can’t complain about the thick productions of resident beatmaker Rev. Shines. But whether it’s Vurs’s shit-talking on a scrub MC for "Rhyming in Arabic with a Portuguese accent" while he himself performs verbal acrobatics, or the track where he calls out "Butt pirates chasin’ the chocolate treasure" while Lifesavas themselves come across as a little contradictory and disingenuous, Spirit never quite pulls together. It’s refreshing to hear a group who seem unconcerned with commercial success; you just wish Lifesavas had chiseled out a mission statement before they set it in Stone.

Lifesavas + THE Coup | Paradise Rock Club, 967 Comm Ave, Boston | Oct 28 | 617.228.6000