Rhymesayers

This isn’t the hip-hop you’ll hear in the club or on the radio – it’s way too weird, paranoid and smart for the masses. Song titles like “Zero Dark Thirty” and “Gopher Guts” give an idea of the twisted terrain we’re walking, as always, with Aesop Rock, rap’s king of curious tales and unstoppable alien flow. Skelethon is the rapper/producer’s sixth LP and first solo effort in five years, featuring a guest spot from anti-folk star Kimya Dawson and full of skittish, heavy-as-hell beats. Even when the dense combinations of words become impossible to penetrate – as they often do – the songs never grow cold: Instead, their mystery pulls us in, compelling us to dissect whatever small pieces we can grab, culling our own meanings from Aesop’s abstract Rorschach test.