REVIEW: THUNDERCAT - THE GOLDEN AGE OF APOCALYPSE

Thundercat - The Golden Age of Apocalypse
Brainfeeder, 2011

I picked up Thundercat's The Golden Age of Apocalypse today. I'd been anxiously awaiting this release since it was announced earlier this year. Cosmogramma was my favourite release of last year (just narrowly beating out Four Tet's There is Love in You), and "Mmmhmm" was an obvious standout on that album, so the idea of more Thundercat produced by Flying Lotus seemed like a great idea. I'd googled Thundercat after Cosmogramma came out, but I couldn't really turn up much information. Since then, there have been a few profiles in the run up to this album (like this one), and Flying Lotus' Thundercat mixtape on the Brainfeeder website helped to fill in some gaps (while raising some intriguing new questions). I'd been championing The Golden Age of Apocalypse for possible album of the year status as various teasers for the album trickled out (like his cover of George Duke's "For Love I Come"), and if it doesn't quite reach those levels, it still manages to end up a pretty decent album.

The album tracks seem to fall into basically two categories: tech-y, jazzy, electro-funk workouts that come across like a slightly more organic version of the kind of sound Flying Lotus was pushing on Cosmogramma, and dreamy fusion numbers that start out with the formula of "Mmmhmm" and expand that blueprint in various directions. Thundercat's voice is quite expressive, with a pure and smooth tone that helps to sell the starry-eyed love songs. What really sets this album apart is the bass-playing: on every track it is phenomenal; Thundercat is a massive talent and his playing reminds me at times of John Wetton c.King Crimson with a less rock flavour. 

The ballads and mid-tempo tracks--even the ones that pick up their tempos at the end, like "For Love I Come"--are the stars on the album ("For Love I Come," "Goldenboy," and "Walkin'" probably getting my picks as songs of the album, with "Daylight" and "Fleer Ultra" just behind as the best of the uptempo numbers), as they let Thundercat's bass ride monster grooves and his voice soar (the falsetto on "Walkin'" is just fantastic). This was probably a pretty obvious bet for anyone who enjoyed "Mmmhmm." In something of a weird twist, though, the characteristics that made "Mmmhmm" standout from the rest of Cosmogramma--the gentleness even as the tempo ratchets up and the bass blurs into manic runs up and down the fretboard, the mantra-like qualities of Thundercat's lyrics and singing--are somehow not present often enough on this album. Far too often during those electro-funk workouts, the keyboards and drums dominate and it becomes difficult to remember that you're not listening to Flying Lotus ("Jamboree" is particularly guilty of this: if you blindfolded me and didn't tell me what you were playing, I'd guess it was something off Pattern+Grid World). Of course, this could demonstrate just how key Thundercat has been to the music that FlyLo's been putting out over the past two years, but it's hard not to feel a little disappointed at Thundercat being relegated to a session player on his own solo album.

Another slight disappointment is the production. Nick Southall, in his latest argument against loudness and overcompression, points out that Flying Lotus is guilty of heavy compression in his own music, and that's certainly true on The Golden Age of Apocalypse (which FlyLo produced). While it's never quite as harsh and fatiguing as something like My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, there isn't a lot of dynamic range. Check out the waveform for "Daylight," for example:

"For Love I Come" is a little better (and also probably the best sounding track on the album):

Some of the electro-funk workouts are pretty bad, though, and it really impedes enjoying the album (especially on headphones). The final two tracks, the semi-title track "Mystery Machine (Golden Age of the Apocalypse)" and "Return to the Journey" are almost unlistenable; they feel aggressive in all the wrong ways, assaults on your ear that leave you cringing and wincing.

All in all, I think The Golden Age of Apocalypse is a good album. It's not the great album I'd hoped it would be, but it's definitely one I will hang onto and keep playing, probably well into the new year. The fusion leanings actually help it to slot in pretty well alongside Air's take on lounge music c.Moon Safari and 10000 Hz Legend, or Stereolab's krautrock bossa nova, which given Air's drop in quality and ambition and the Groop's hiatus, can only be a positive.