Indulgent. In a word. Just my opinion, but there is a lot of fat that could be cut from this ambitious work. Front loaded excellence. The pacing and flow of the album starts off promising with the insane near perfect flow of Things Done Changed // Gimme The Loot // Machine Gun Funk (with its awesome LoTU sample).
Sadly after this point much of the work's lyrical content becomes extremely repetitive in a way that dulls the album and drives home a handful of over-spoken points that are honestly just not that interesting to hear over and over again. These recurring lyrical themes—violence, hustling, paranoia—are quintessential 90s NY meditations, but they do repeat to the point of diminishing returns.The titular track is appropriate as I feel that it knows deep down what this album is trying to be - the epitome of the NY sound over a framework of west-coast influence which can be really interesting and delicately balanced at times, not so much at others
Other highlights were 'Everyday Struggle' on which the snare-work is insane and 'Suicidal Thoughts' is a haunting and relentless finisher for this overindulgent and confused masterpiece. Cutting 30-40% of the tracks would create a more concise and meaningful work for me and raises an interesting "what if"—how would 'Ready to Die' feel as a 10 track, 40-minute LP?
This would be my alternate running order:
1. Things Done Changed
2. Gimme The Loot
3. Machine Gun Funk
4. One More Chance
5. The What
6. Everyday Struggle
7. Respect
8. Unbelievable
9. Suicidal Thoughts
10. Who Shot Ya?
Fever Dream. A night out on chemistry. You're breaking free and the morning's come. It's a gonzo masterpiece - first person. dutch tilt. tweak, drift, pray for the unbearable high to level back out.
Ecstatic scum. Grounded in the anxious baseness of all alleyways and dingy sticky ugly clubs, The Fat of the Land stumbles from the stall: a quixotic adventure in a landscape that is nonsensical, romantic and foreign. Eyelid stretchers. The 56 minute Ludevico.
Overture. Take my pitch up, Smack My Bitch Up - sharpen the blades that will swing for Breathe - a prowess exhibition of pulsing descending melody. A promising, throttling, uncompromising start.
Reaching Diesel Power, a masterclass in keeping the engine ticking-over as the cadence of Breathe evaporates. We are reminded; unnerved by just how potent what we've bought might be, how magisterial our chemist might be. Horrorstricken by this prospect, our unrelenting trip is not letting up. Beastie Shit. 16ths, Choppy 303, no glide. Haskins pounds digital vellum. I will never be tired again.
We hit Minefields and everything changes. Then Narayan, the climatic epitome of what this insanity trip has come to be. It's your cousin's iPod in 2005. What a discovery. But then it’s all over before it could begin. Climatize is the perfect encore.
The police arrived and shut it down. Driving home and Fuel my Fire; like some strange acid flashback starring the B52s parodies our nascent 50 minutes of rebirth. Here, somehow in this strange sonic desert, Prodigy made Genesis 45:18 sing. It was outrageous and contagious.
The palpable feeling of longing and reflection captured in these recordings makes this work timeless and endlessly re-playable. At times saturated with pure emotion, and at others a distant, retrospective, haunting lament. Though these songs are not inherently dark thematically and lyrics are most often filled with a hopeful longing, Springfield's voice lends a dynamic counterpoint to this, coloring her words with this awesome depth.
What I love about this record shares many of those same intangible features that I adore about Scott Walker's 3 & 4, it's extremely personal, human, isolated, introspective, yet amplified to this epic scale - this is what a great record is at it's core.
So Much Love - Springfield paints a picture that sets the tone and character for what is to come, as well as confidently demonstrating super early into the album that she is master of a stinging post-chorus refrain.
Son of a Preacherman - I had never noticed just how much the drums make this track. Its placement in the running order punctuates the first side of this work, demonstrating Springfields dynamism.
I Don't Want to Hear it Anymore - Again, that post-chorus refrain is loaded this raw dawning melancholy that has kept this track on repeat.
Side A draws to a close with Breakfast In Bed, a track that combines the dual dynamic forces that have built and teetered throughout the preceding songs. Though as a standalone track it doesn't feel as strong as some, it signals an awareness of what the work is as a cohesive whole, making us want to continue our journey on Side 2.
Just One Smile kicks off a secure and familiar second act that is disrupted by Windmills of Your Mind - it doesn't fit, in the very best way. The stylistic change is contemplative, serious and heavy as hell. In terms of mood, it for me parallels, Walker's It's Raining Today, interestingly also released March 1969!)
This rainy feeling only continues into No Easy Way Down, a track that feels like it's about falling from the heights of love. An ending relationship. As before, it is contemplative, melancholic but equally strangely hopeful.
I Can't Make It Alone then offers return to the subject after time has passed, expressing the profound difficulty that lingers in the continuing situation of an ended love - self doubt. It is an extremely honest and vulnerable note on which to end the album and gives her audience only a question mark.
The more I listened the more I got from this work. Initially the track order felt cohesive though not conceptually or melodically, but Springfield's ability to evoke mood, and the instrumentation of American Sound Studios makes this work so extremely consistent, that a narrative concept emerges after a few listens. This is a great album.
