Slug and Ant have been pretty quiet since the last Atmosphere album, The Family Sign, which was released three years ago. Over the years the indie rap royalty has been among the most prolific groups in music, regularly releasing material in between their LPs. Outside of a few singles to promote small tours and an excellent one-off (“Bob Segar”), which dropped last summer, we have received very little music from the Minneapolis duo in the past three years. Maybe it was the couple of years apart, but something feels a little off with their latest release, Southsiders.

Once again Ant’s production centers around live instrumentation, which in the past has yielded mixed results. Previous players Erick Anderson (keys) and Nate Collis (guitar) are nowhere to be found, and Ant has brought on G. Koop to fill in the void. While I though Collis was a phenomenal guitar player (see: “Guarantees” and “Painting”), I think G. Koop brings a nice change of pace to Ant’s production, which at times got a little redundant on The Family Sign and To All My Friends. Ant has some of his best work in years on Southsiders, which has a more lush and bigger sound than the stripped down, sparseness of the previous two Atmosphere releases. On the opening track, “Camera Thief,” G. Koop uses driving piano and a bluesy wah-wah guitar, over which Slug uses various metaphors to sum up the past few years of his life:

“If I had a time machine,
I would use it like a vacuum and try to clean.”

While Ant’s work on Southsiders has been an improvement over the past few releases, Slug is more hit-and-miss. Being an emcee in his early 40 making music for kids in their teens and 20s is no easy task, but there are some major misses. As with all Atmosphere releases, Slug is an open book, but the past angst and edginess on early albums is vanished. This is to be expected, and it would be highly disappointing if Slug was still trying to re-create what he made on Lucy Ford and God Loves Ugly. He found a nice lane in the “grown man rap” (which-hip hop as a whole still hasn’t quite figured out yet… lookin’ at you Hov) on The Family Sign, so Slug doesn’t need to angry to make good music. But much of his work on Southsiders just feels uninspired. Most of Slug’s hooks on the album are either lazy or corny – or on the otherwise excellent, “Kanye West,” both. The lead single, “Bitter,” sounds like a re-hash of “Just For Show” (which was one of the weaker tracks on The Family Sign) with a pretty awful hook.

Don’t get me wrong, there are some excellent moments on Southsiders. The aforementioned “Camera Thief,” and the heartbreaking ode to Eyedea, “Flicker,” are likely the only tracks I would put in the “Atmosphere Canon” from this album. “Mrs. Interpret” and “My Lady Got Two Men” are good songs with great concepts, that I feel like a more inspired Slug would make into masterpieces. The album’s title track is a hard-hitting ode to Minneapolis, and flashes glimpses of old school Slug, the battle emcee.

Atmosphere is in my top four hip hop acts. Slug’s words helped me through some of the hardest moments of my life, and have helped formed me into the person I am today. So after the first spin of Southsiders, I dropped the booklet, which I had been critically reading along with as I listened, and I was at a loss of words. The confusion and disappointment I felt was similar to when I was 14 and heard Eminem’s Encore for the first time. Except instead of denying the album’s flaws, I overreacted, alluded to Slug falling off, and didn’t play the album for a few days (which is why this review is late). I remember chuckling at a line on “Flicker,” where he raps that Eyedea would:

“Ridicule these lyrics,
you’d hate this chorus,
and probably tell me that the concept was too straight forward.”

I was tempted to snarkishly post that as the album review and give Southsiders a 5. But after a couple of days I revisited the album, and like The Family Sign, it started to get better with each listen. I don’t fully expect to change my mind completely about this record, as I play it more, but I could see this being an album I enjoy more when my life starts to settle down. Unfortunatley I don’t foresee that happening in the next 10-15 years, so until then I’ll probably just re-visit some of Atmosphere’s older records.

6/10

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Tracklisting:

1) Camera Thief
2) Arthur’s Song
3) The World Might Not Live Through The Night
4) Star Shaped Heart
5) I Love You Like A Brother
6) Southsiders
7) Bitter
8) Mrs. Interpret
9) Fortunate
10) Kanye West
11) We Ain’t Gonna Die Today
12) My Lady Got Two Men
13) Flicker
14) January On Lake Street
15) Let Me Know That You Know What You Want Now