PRESSED ON GOLD AND BLACK MARBLED VINYL By 2007, Aesop Rock was a decade into a career that had firmly established him as one of rap’s unreplicable auteurs, an artist who could be bitten only insofar as he could be understood. And still, when he sat down to write his fifth full-length album, None Shall Pass, relics of his earliest work kept popping back up: the sorrow and salvation that can each be found in rigid structures, the horror of the ordinary, the tyranny of routine. Over a series of beats constructed in near-total by himself and Blockhead (El-P furnishes one track and co-produces another; Aes’ friend Rob Sonic handles the digital-gothic “Dark Heart News”), None Shall Pass argues for Aes as the chief correspondent of an American decline so smooth that it often felt comfortable. Tracklist: A1. Keep Off The Lawn A2. None Shall Pass A3. Catacomb Kids A4. Bring Back Pluto B1. Fumes B2. Getaway Car B3. 39 Thieves B4. The Harbor Is Yours C1. Citronella C2. Gun For The Whole Family C3. Five Fingers D1. No City D2. Dark Heart News D3. Coffee
