Anti-Pop Consortium

Anti-Pop Consortium forcibly introduce their harder, heavier mix of electro-rap and IDM-influenced hip-hop by opening reunion album Fluorescent Black with a noisy metal guitar solo and drum break intro that bleeds into the rest of "Lay Me Down" (and yet again on "Born Electric"). The futuristic dance beats of songs like "C Thru U," "Get Lite," "Capricorn One" and "Dragunov" may pull fans of electro crunk ― an offshoot of rap with beats similar to what APC were doing ten years ago― but the sci-fi subject matter, abstract raps and fast flows may still be a hard sell. The solo songs supply some fine story tracks, like M. Sayyid's artist in over his star head on "Shine" and High Priest's sci-fi solution to evolution through bionics on "The Solution," but Sayyid, HP and Beans also continue to drop abstract battle raps with songs like previously mentioned album opener "Lay Me Down," "Born Electric" and first single "Volcano." Fluorescent Black is an exciting, energetic return for a group long overdue for a new release, and it might just be the best Anti-Pop Consortium album to date.