Dalek: Abandoned Language

Dälek
Abandoned Language
Ipecac

“When a forest grows too wild, a purging fire is inevitable and natural.” No, these are not lyrics from New Jersey hip-hop duo Dälek’s latest album. Actually, I think it’s something Liam Neeson said when the League of Shadows were ransacking Gotham in the last Batman flick. The point is, if the League of Shadows ever needed a house band, they’d want a hip-hop apocalypse on wheels, and this is who they’d call.

For almost a decade, MC Dälek and his cohort Oktopus have been waging a convincing, albeit relatively unnoticed, war on the rap establishment. Abandoned Language is their fourth full-length effort, and while it’s taken a bleaker, almost ambient turn from their once supercharged, guitar-heavy sound, it still finds the group poised in direct opposition to just about every aspect of today’s commercial hip-hop.

There are no catchy club anthems here; no repetitive self promotion, no anonymous female moaning, and not even a trace of P-I-M-P-ing. Instead, Abandoned Language comes on like a broadcast from a Bladerunner ghetto, with ominous sirens, horns and strings swirling around the beats of guest DJ Rob Swift—creating an icy atmosphere more reminiscent of albums by Boards of Canada or Godspeed You Black Emperor. The mix strategically drowns out the vocals at times, but when Dälek’s rhymes rise above the ruckus—like on the incredible, ten-minute title track—he aims high. “I read your big history text, it never mentioned / a solitary second of my people’s true intentions.” Social commentary? This will never sell.

(Andrew Clayman)


Published in The Metro Pulse, March 2007