SMUG BROTHERS – ANOTHER BAR BEHIND THE NIGHT

It always happens, I try to get an idea of what’s going on around me and wonder what is going on. But things are usually much simpler than we make them out to be and here it isn’t much different. Columbus, Ohio’s Smug Brothers return on the heels of last year’s In The Book Of Bad Ideas releasing the new Another Bar Behind The Night EP (Anyway Records), which makes me believe someone was inebriated coming up with that title. Read it a few times and tell me if I’m going crazy or not. But I like the twist on the wording there. Ok, enough of that.

I like the Smug Brothers, because they’re able to twist a melody around in the friendliest way. The new EP could probably also be listed as just an extended single although it contains six tracks, most are just right over the one minute mark. “Javelina Nowhere” opens things up and it’s what you would expect with its buttery soft vocal delivery and silky instrumental backdrop one could get lost in, just like looking into Brad Pitt’s eyes. Guitars and wind instruments work in unison and this is pop sweetness all throughout. “Seamus And The Younger” comes in at 1 minute and 11 seconds but it’s a completely thought out driving pop song that’s perfect in its brevity. While “Alexander For Two” starts off with good ideas, it seems to end much too quickly. You want more and then it ends, much like “The Seven-Year Inch” which I keep playing over and over. This one gives off a breezy chill the band could have offered more on but I’ll take what’s here. Just hit that repeat button. But “Shedding Polymer” is the rocker we all want. Again filled with those lavish vocals, and this time around the guitars offer notes and chords that are so appealing.

Again, the Smug Brothers are obviously masters at what they craft and always leave room for more ideas and Another Bar Behind The Night just allows us to see farther into what the band is capable of doing.

BRONX SLANG – I’M NOT CHILLIN’

Conscious Hip-Hop has become almost obsolete in present-day music. There’s much more profitability in rap music that focuses on guns, crime, misogyny, drugs & liquor. While some artists have veered off and have been able to create a way and path of their own (Common, Talib, etc.), we find it, from time to time, but rarely.

This isn’t to say New York duo Bronx Slang falls under the umbrella of consciousness but it comes close. Bronx Slang, made up of Jerry Beeks and Ollie Miggs, have been grinding for some time, littering tracks with real-life situations, explicitly noting what they see around them, from the ground looking up. Politics, police, local neighborhoods, and putting in work. With a couple of albums and a mixtape, Bronx Slang has uttered in a new era of thoughtful lyricism over thick beats with Boom-Bap energy. Honestly, the 2019 single “Run Away Sucker” is one track that’s difficult to get out of your head. Miggs & Beeks return with its 4-song EP, I’m Not Chillin’ (Splitwax Records) which finds the group rhyming over beats created by Cut Beetlez, the production team of HP Lovescratch and J-MAN. It’s that moment when reality hits and we get the example of how Hip-Hop has become a global force.  

The Cut Beetlez has worked with other familiar names (A-F-R-O, Reks) and this time around with Bronx Slang, with just four songs both duos gel and neither takes a misstep. The EP opens with the darkly-tinged title track, as survival takes preference. It’s the daily struggle with the heavy-handed beat fitted around it, capturing moments of despair and flight or fight attitudes. This leads to the morose “Liars,” and in this country? Yeah, we’re surrounded by them at every turn. Politicians, the love of our lives that we thought would never leave us, as well as looking at ourselves because as long as you attempt to be self-effacing, you’re looked at as a thief & a crook. The wording, phrased around the beats, is the perfect meeting of minds and sound. “Next To Drip” is that one joint that you won’t be able to get out of your head and that background “Aww shit, who’s next to drip?” hook, that just gets stuck in your head. There’s meaning in the madness and when Beeks rhymes “Still laying down phrases in a different phase/complaining I’m underpaid and over slave,” we know what the focus is on. It’s another working man anthem while also calling out the contradiction of life itself. The jazzy beat suits it well.

The 4-song teaser gives us what we need as we wait patiently for a new full-length. And while I mentioned earlier the global impact of culture, it’s great to see that on I’m Not Chillin’ moves from Finland to the Bronx, completing the circle from around the world back to the Bronx.