This is the brand new album from Los Angeles experimental hip hop trio clipping.. Fronted by Daveed Diggs, he joined forces with William Hutson & Jonathan Snipes to drop their midcity mixtape in 2013 & it landed them a contract with Sub Pop Records shortly after. The label granted them a full-length debut the following year but I didn’t completely hop on board with these guys until their Deathbomb Arc debut Splendor & Misery in 2016, which is a fantastic sci-fi odyssey. They returned around this time last year by dropping their magnum opus There Existed an Addiction to Blood & to celebrate it’s 1-year anniversary, Daveed & company are back with a sequel.
The intro talks about how the album will pick up where the last one left off over a dark ambient instrumental whereas the next song “Say the Name” retells the story of Clive Barker’s Candyman over an electro-industrial beat. After the “Wytchboard” interlude, the track “’96 Neve Campbell” with Cam & China pays tribute to the final girl characters in slasher films over a hyphy beat while the song “Something Underneath” talks about a monster lurking over a buzzing beat.
The track “Make Them Dead” talks about murder over a noise instrumental while the song “She Bad” gets flirtatious over a skittering beat. After the “Invocation” interlude, the track “Pain Everyday” gets paranormal over a breakcore instrumental while the song “Check the Lock” is a worthy sequel to the classic Seagram joint “Sleepin in My Nikes” with a deranged beat.
The track “Looking for Meat” with Ho99o9 sees the 2 groups talking about cannibalism over an industrial beat which & after the “Drove” interlude, the song “Eaten Alive” is a homage to the Tobe Hooper film of the same name over a hollow beat. The track “Body for the Pile” talks about murdering 3 cops over a harsh noise instrumental from Slickness & before ending off with the Yoko Ono-inspired “Secret Piece” outro, the final song “Enlacing” gets on the Lovecraftian tip over a cloudy beat.
Much like the new Alla Xul Elu album Mauxuleum that dropped the week before, I think Visions of Bodies Being Burned just goes to show how underappreciated horrorcore is in the hip hop culture. The concepts that Daveed bring to the table throughout have only leveled up in comparison to There Existed an Addiction to Blood & the trio’s production is a lot more darker as well.
Score: 4.5/5
Legends Will Never Die 