Terrain to Roam

For his second full-length record, Terrain to Roam, L.A. rapper Subtitle decided to use other producers' beats instead of his own (he had already shown those off on his debut, Young Dangerous Heart), which ends up working pretty well for him, encouraging him to stretch his lyric and delivery styles and to explore new territory. The album still has the general dark-hollow-drum feel of Young Dangerous Heart, but there's a playfulness heard here that was missing on his first release. Subtitle's still acutely socially aware and unafraid to criticize when necessary (the American Medical Association's a target on "Pill Pop"), but he's also unafraid to make fun of himself and even the hip-hop he loves. "Write Is Wrong," produced by Nobody, is about as close to a dance track as any backpacker would ever get, with its sparse, fractured hyphy-esque beat and hook ("Before I go to jail I'm going to party like I'm crazy/Before I go to the DMV I'll party like I'm crazy/Before I visit grandma, I'll party like I'm crazy/Write makes wrong so I'll party like I'm crazy") and the Small Is Beautiful-produced "Dance Invite #1" samples and loops complex handclaps and a melancholy guitar as Subtitle raps, in his nerdy, quasi-talking way, "Call you up, you're my kind of girl, even if you are me-chan-i-cal." There's no topic he seems unwilling to broach, explaining the beat-making process over the noisy electronic drums of "Restructure/Reroute" (featuring Lab Waste partner Thavius Beck and produced by Daddy Kev), telling about his tough, problematic childhood (something he generally avoids) on "About the Author," playing the detective on guitar-heavy "Seventies Western Crime Scene, Pt. 1" and "Pt. 2," where he uses his nasally voice and fast-talking (as opposed to a more aggressive spitting) style to describe and explain and question. Subtitle's fun but he's also intelligent and imaginative and even provocative, and he doesn't sound much like other MCs out there. But this doesn't make him come across as condescending or overbearing; instead, Terrain to Roam is a creative, interesting, and accessible album, an excellent piece of work from one of the underground's most exciting and unique artists.