04.07
The Front’s latest endeavor is high quality awesome, so let’s just eliminate any ambiguity about that right now.
To be frank, I’ve had a hard time embracing MC Frontalot’s music prior to Zero Day, despite appreciating his stage presence at Nerdapalooza and PAX, and thinking he was a pretty cool guy based on repeated viewings of the Nerdcore Rising documentary and a short conversation at Nerdapalooza last summer. His peculiar delivery is often, let’s be honest, challenging and the non-lyrical elements weren’t all that compelling on their own, but there’s unquestionably a lot of cleverness and humor throughout every Frontalot album.
But Zero Day succeeds on all fronts (yes, I did that.) All of the characteristic terse lyricism is still there but it seems like Frontalot has found a way to employ it without staggering through a murderously jagged syllabic rhythm that shakes off any but the most tenacious listener. The instrumentation has likewise been raised to a new level, with fun, interesting music backing every track.
Finally, the collaborators lacing this album all had fantastic contributions and I think Zero Day is so excellent as much due to their efforts as to the Front and his perennial cohort. The album would have been an altogether different creature absent their additions.
Though I have many expressions of wonderment I could continue to offer in service of Zero Day’s edification, every album has its warts, and I would not be me if I did not strive to make them evident alongside the features deserving of adulation. But my grousing may be easily confined to two topics here. I like John Hodgman and all, but his skit was sadly a clunker. Just not funny.
The other thing is …The Painstakingly Concealed Secret Track. Which only annoys me because it isn’t easy enough to just access the track if you’re not interested in playing a game to get it. Hell, it’s a miracle I managed to throw enough time together to make this post, I don’t really have the time or attention to play mini-games to access stuff I paid to hear.
Anyway, check out a couple of my favorites from the album and go buy it. Frontalot actually sells FLAC copies of his albums. Support that my friends, for it is far too rare a thing.
MC Frontalot – Zero Day
MC Frontalot – The Council Of Loathing
“His peculiar delivery is often, let’s be honest, challenging”
too true.