Finally have solidified my thoughts on Atrocity Exhibition:
It's kind of odd when an artist's output matches up perfectly with what you had ideally conceived for them. Atrocity Exhibition pretty much delivers on the exact sound and concept that I thought I had always wanted out of Danny. It's a natural maturation of his sound, a culmination of the some of the darker experiments showcased on XXX, and Side A of Old. However, for some reason I don't find myself as excited to listen to Atrocity Exhibition as many of his other works. It's definitely a weird realization to come to terms with considering I definitely think it's probably Danny's second best album ever and easily one of the best rap albums of the year.
Atrocity Exhibition is Danny at his most streamlined and focused. For the most part Danny's zany antics are somewhat put in check, the production is quite murky, busy and atmospheric at times. It's so heavily layered, and dense at times that I think it often competes with Danny at times and forces him into a somewhat more stagnant flow. For a guy with so many different flows and the ability to hit so many different dynamic points often times Danny just sort of resorts to these sort of recycled grooves. Of course there are some exceptions, on White Lines maintains this really lovely off-kilter melody throughout and it's also one of the few tracks which sticks to a first person narrative.
The album feels too polished and though Danny's adherence to the overarching themes are a definite strength in one sense, the concepts themselves seem to have already been exhausted by Danny himself. He's not talking about anything different than the things he's already discussed on XXX and Side A of Old, and in fact I don't think he ever gets close to touching the intimacy of XXX, Side A, or even The Hybrid. It's like he skimmed the main themes of those albums and left out the personal intricacies. I touched on it before, but I think Danny's biggest strength is showcased when he's rapping from a first person perspective, through that lens Danny is able to generate these really poignant references to pop culture and takes on the world that are equally depressing, revealing, and comedic. Just take a listen to a song like Fields, DNA, 30, Adderall Admiral or even if you go back to The Hybrid there's S.O.S. and Thank God. His punchlines were simply ingenious, though he still told stories with them if that makes sense.
Atrocity Exhibition is probably Danny's most serious album. There's a constant sense of darkness and paranoia throughout it, but very little of the ironic humor that made Danny's other works so special. Furthermore, the brief moments when Atrocity Exhibition lets up and offers a break from this tension are boring and not amusing, whereas on XXX and The Hybrid you had these really zany breaks that maintained the subject matter while also injecting bit of parody and self-awareness. For example, Radio Song, Scrap or Die, and Party All The Time maintain a certain bleakness while also being quite humorous in a way. I think Danny lost sense of how to do both on A.E.
I think my biggest takeaway on the album is that although the production seems to be more convoluted and heavily layered on Atrocity Exhibition, Danny's sensibility seems more insular throughout. It's still a very good album, but I think it's lacking a lot of the personality and character that made XXX so brilliant. XXX hits on so many emotions concurrently kind of like Mona Lisa's Smile, whereas A.E. would be like if Da Vinci simply drew her with a woeful frown.
