Review: Atmosphere's When Life Gives You Lemons, You Paint That Shit Gold
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On their sixth studio album, Atmosphere have squeezed out some fresh, new elements to their sound, without straying from the well-delivered, intimate storytelling which fans have come to expect from Slug. Meanwhile, DJ/producer Ant has concocted a different sound, the most obvious addition being his synth-heavy beats, followed by jazzier touches of piano, horns, bare guitar riffs, and featured female vocals.Slug has often been categorized as an “emo rapper,” due to his innate ability to reveal his own real life struggles, as well as fictionalized narratives that are told so convincingly the line becomes blurred. Coming with less anger and more resolution, Slug’s taking life’s problems and doing as the album title says, “painting that shit gold.”
One of the more personal cuts, set to a simple piano melody, “Yesterday” finds Slug addressing an important person, who isn’t revealed until the end of the song. No longer having a “chip on [his] shoulder” has allowed Slug the attitude adjustment needed to gain a new perspective on emotional struggle. He grasps it as a necessity in making him the person he is today. Addressing this significant person, he shares, “I can’t even get mad that you’re gone/ Leaving me was probably the best thing you ever taught me.”
Equally as personal, “In Her Music Box” shows us Slug in real life, as Sean Daley, father to a little girl whose childhood is one where “Daddies drive around/ Mommies work night-shifts.” His daughter’s solace is found in riding around with her father, “Daddy in the front seat, frontin’ like a rap star,” singing along to the radio, napping to the “sweet, pretty sounds of gangster rap.” The dysfunctional dynamics surrounding his daughter make for a heartbreaking depiction. Sadly, it’s a familiar scenario, one that humanizes Slug to his audience; at this point in his career his fans have come to expect this.
Still present are narratives delving into the world of wayward women. The difference is the haunting mood embellished by the dissonant “sci-fi” sounds of the synthesizer. In the song “Your Glass House,” Slug speaks directly to its main character, a woman who is all too familiar with waking up in a stranger’s house: “And everything still spins/ And then the chills begin/ And then the, ‘God, please kill me right now’ hits/ And you still don't know whose house this is.”
Perhaps the most spaced-out track is “Can’t Break Away.” It opens like the battle scene soundtrack of your favorite arcade game, or on the “Tom Sawyer”-by-Rush tip. The somber, yet alarming vibe matches the sentiment, as Slug repeats, “I feel and I fear and I want and I can’t break away.”
In the past, life has handed Sean Daley crates of lemons. In previous years, over various albums, he’s expressed life’s stresses while still fuming mad and bitter. Even his fictional stories were told from the minds of characters that seemed to thrive on being unhappy and unwilling to seek resolve. When Life Gives You Lemons… exhibits a more mellowed out Slug. Longtime Atmosphere fans, have no fear. It’s not that Slug has “gone soft;” he’s merely given a bit of a spin on his perspective on life (no easy task), and the result is anything but sour.
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