Seeing Sounds- Th0ro's Take

So.
My bootleg press-copy of the long awaited junior endeavor from Chad, Pha-real, and that other dude (Shay?) finally hits the good ole' inbox.
Un-Rar, into iTunes, blah-zay blah...
And here we are.

Primarily, for those of you with short attention spans, the album is sick sans two or three easily forgettable tracks. This is forgivable though --- (by law) with a 12 track album you're allotted 2 filler-songs/skits. Now go watch a Kimbo fight or somethin.

Now, for those of us who can like to read a bit...

As should be expected, Seeing Sounds is an album of very distinct flavor; but at this point it's almost platitudinous to extol N.E.R.D for sonically veering WAAAY into left field. Anything less would a strongly unwelcome vacillation into normalcy, which is contradictory to what made fans fall in love with N.E.R.D. in the first place. It's innerving to hear someone we're familiar with diverge from the "auto-tuner+R&B singer=Hit" formula, and do it without feeling nostalgic or bromidic. The aura presented by the first half of Seeing Sounds is enough to make one crave Ecstasy and Glo-Sticks, "Anti-Matter" and "Spaz" towering over the rest as the livest tracks on the album. This is not to downplay the remaining few tracks on the album, which are all raw in their own rite, but they go from making you want to "Run a mufucka off da' road" to "Politely signaling and passing when the lane's clear." By that same token this could be a good thing as it shows some signs of artistic range and N.E.R.D.'s versatility as a collective production duo/trio (WTF IS THAT THIRD NEGRO THERE FOR;) displaying how effortlessly they can weave from workout/party music into a steady head-nod inducing groove. Overall, Seeing Sounds was everything one could ask it to be. I mean, everyone nose Pharrell can't sing to save his life; so to go into this album expecting Luther is completely unfair to Pha-real. That, and you're robbing yourself of a quality listening opportunity. I mean, in a period where music is cluttered by so many generic "artists" splurting out such quickly antiquated sounds, one would be hard-pressed to find something rivaling Seeing Sounds in its originality and vibe values any time soon.


My Thoughts:

4/5 overall
Windows, Time for Some Action, Anti-Matter, Spaz, and Sooner or Later are my top-cinco from the album
Pha-real still can't sing, for real. But the little guy may have taken some lessons, as his crooning has become bearable.
Production is top notch, but ya'll saw that coming, right?
I never really figured what that third dude does, but he's cool with me.
Go buy the shit, I'll be at Best Buy on the 10TH!!!! to get a physical copy.


thanks for bearing with me on my first post,

-kEEPiTtHORO