Album Cuts: Aesop Rock

One of the most conspicuous debuts of last year, Aesop Rock's Labor Days marked the commencement of a major new voice in hip-hop. Aesop's verbose, quasi-poetic rhymes and clever metaphors got heavy headphone rotation with many an urban intellectual. Still, it was Labor Days' eclectic production and Aesop's eardrum-splitting vocal cadence that truly separated the album from the flood of nondescript freshman releases.

Aesop's latest EP, Daylight, offers five new songs thematically linked to the Labor Days cut of the same name. The eponymous opener has enough quotables to fill Bartlett's hip-hop edition, while the sentimental beat compliments the lyrics perfectly. "Night Light" takes the song and inverts it, reversing the lyrics and offering a new set of sharp one-liners at which to wonder.

On "Pocket Full of Nickels," which features an appropriately grimy beat produced by El-P, Rock gives his reaction to post-Sept. 11 New York with an account that's beautifully, and brutally, understated. From there, Daylight slips a little, as "Alchemy" suffers from a weak beat and sloppy cameo by Blueprint, but regains strength with a surprisingly solid instrumental, "Forest Crunk," and ends on a high note with "Bracket Basher."

With his new EP, Aesop Rock continues to shed light on the dark corners of hip-hop that most overlook.

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