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• Service Merchandise [Merge, 2024] A

Consumer Guide Reviews:

Service Merchandise [Merge, 2024]
Initially, L.A.-based Chicago alt-rapper Open Mike Eagle and his homies Video Dave and Still Rift knocked me out with their beats or maybe just sound, not the sense of ominously encroaching maturity-cum-mortality themes they and their fortysomething-and-counting fanbase have a right to even if they seem little old to the likes of me. (As an 82-year-old let me school you, younguns: you get used to it, although senility does eventually portend.) Alt-rap hopefuls taken up by a Research Triangle alt-rock label now more than three decades old, they sound like some of those beats originate in an actual drum kit, which illusion or not is a sonic treat—lots of banging, minimal squooshing and squealing. And while I wouldn't claim there are hooks galore here, all 11 tracks are songful enough to buoy lyrics that seldom falter. "My name is Open Michael/And it's pronounced like it was fired from an broken rifle." "No retractions, no living in fractions." "I threw my caution to the wind and it came right back." "I say see you next time/I hope there's a next time." "Caught up in the riptide/Second-hand apartheid." "Indie rappers deserve government subsidies/Or else we'll make other discoveries." A