Blam! Bodyslamming thunderbeats send you spinning, diabolical elektro-bass knocks you flat, then a devil-dog rapper spits blood, piss, shit and spunk all over your face. "I've got my bass degree/It's my PhD/I come from Mental Hard Beat University". Gold Chains, aka Topher LaFata from San Francisco, has rocked the mic with techno vandal Kid606 but he's clearly bursting with his own ideas.
"Hypno babes rules my pants!" he roars, oddly, over grimy ragga-dub distortion grooves: "I'm the bedroom commander/The king of love!" Surfing a toxic sludge-wave of steroid-pumped laptop funk, beatbox scuzz, porno-rap, bruising dubtronica, rasping punk-metal guitars, Armenian goatherd bagpipes and even a drone-rocking Stereolab sample, LaFata is hip-hopping mad to the max. He raps about trading rhymes for arms in Chechnya and "kicking it with JC" in ancient Palestine - genius.
'Gold Chains' sounds exactly like ARE Weapons would if they weren't a piss-poor Renegade Soundwave tribute band, and how Andrew WK would if his musical mentor was Ol' Dirty Bastard rather than Ugly Kid Joe. Time to get really wet.
Stephen Dalton
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