Dälek

"I don't make records for shock value," underground hip-hop hero dälek says in the press release for his new album, Gutter Tactics. As a general mission statement, that's surely true. But it's hard not to be a little cynical about the choice to kick off an album–released a week after Barack Obama’s inauguration–with the fiery words of Rev. Jeremiah Wright. The issue isn't the message but the messenger; it's commendable to challenge conventional thinking, of course–and it's a valid point that, from certain vantage points, America herself has been a terrorist state. But to use Wright (hardly the first person to have these thoughts) in this context does, in fact, feel suspiciously like a shock attempt. It also inevitably puts the focus on Wright, not Wright’s point.

After that questionable start, Gutter Tactics gets more intellectually engaging; they have plenty to say for themselves. They aren’t overt political firebrands, but there's little mistaking their gist. Sonically, their brand of hip-hop (confusingly, dälek the group is made up of dälek the MC and producer Oktopus) straddles enough genres that they've toured with post-rock and hardcore bands. The beats are dissonant and distorted; Oktopus creates an industrial, apocalyptic backdrop for dälek's storytelling. The Achilles heel of Gutter Tactics is that sometimes the murky music threatens to bleed together between tracks and pull the lyrics underneath the sludge altogether. Unlike some of their peers, dälek's lyric sheet is a point of interest, and sometimes it's a bit too much of a scavenger hit to find the language beneath the angry, droning beats and effects.

Oktopus also pulls out some highly effective changes of pace as the album wears on. Early tracks like "No Question" and "Street Diction" give an indication of why dälek can comfortably sit on a bill with a hard rock band; "No Question" especially is guided not just by a hip-hop beat but by a grinding collage of noise beneath. But then "A Collection of Miserable Thoughts Laced with Wit" settles into an ambient–even pretty–electronic backdrop, a point of refuge and reflection that then surrenders to "Los Macheteros / Spear of a Nation," a politically charged tale that blends post-rock and hip-hop. The title track and the closing "Atypical Stereotype" continue along this unique road, and while it's not likely to make you sing along, Gutter Tactics has a way of getting inside your head all the same.

—Adam McKibbin
01.26.09

Coming off of the blistering beats and symphonic doom of Abandoned Language, New Jersey duo Dälek (pronounced dialect) continue swaggering down the same path that made their last album a success, and in a sense, Gutter Tactics could be considered Abandoned Language, Pt. 2. When you've found your sound, why make a departure? Previous tour dates with Ipecac labelmates -- Isis in particular -- prove to be hugely influential once again, as metallic fuzz and white-noise layers propel the agitated rhymes of dälek (the MC) in a thick swampy steam. Aptly titled, the album has a dark, disorienting, and toxic vibe. Instrumentally, Gutter Tactics shares much in common with the droning shoegaze of My Bloody Valentine and the distorted orchestration of Mono, due to live overdubs provided by various musicians ushered from dälek's Deadverse record label into his newly built studio. The funky jazz of Motiv is washed into a haze behind Destructo Swarmbots' myriad of guitar effects, resulting in a blurry ultra-compressed dreamscape wedged between the brick-breaking snaps of Oktopus' beats. It's actually quite difficult to specify what instrumentation makes up the wall of sound -- synths, strings, horns, guitar effects, or something else entirely. It all simply sounds like a sludgy cyclic hum that shifts between two moods: threatening and beautiful. On one side of the coin, there's the ominous "No Question," with factory crunch drum sequencing accented by intense Jeru the Damaja-type rhymes. On the other, there's the flashback to the sweeter days of hip-hop in the sedate and droning "We Lost Sight," a song that marks the MC and producer at the top of their game as chamber organs swell hypnotically underneath a gritty boom-bap, while dälek reminisces in a echoing vocal, "We lost sight on how to use these mikes/What scripts we write/How to choose our fights." Disenchantment with the state of rap, and society as a whole, is a major underlying theme, but the statements never feel too preachy or in your face. Instead, the vocal freestyles hover just slightly above the music, delivered in an amorphous mumble that matches the sonic abyss of the background perfectly. Headphones are highly recommended for this one. ~ Jason Lymangrover, All Music Guide