Nacho Picasso & Blue Sky Black Death: Lord Of The Fly

- Seattle rapper Nacho Picasso and frequent production collaborators Blue Sky Black Death were totally unknown to me until the closing stages of last year, in which Nacho put out For The Glory, my hands down, favourite album of last year- a focused, slick, gorgeous epic that saw main offender Nacho Picasso mercilessly killing it, sounding almost too on top of things, barely breaking a sweat. Now, less than 3 months later, Nacho Picasso continues to live up to his namesake, hooking up with Blue Sky Black Death to drop another album of the year contender, seemingly out of nowhere, intent to defy my pessimism of such an undertaking. There's something charming in the way Nacho raps- juxtaposed pop-culture references, internal monologues and random thoughts that hit-home almost like punch-line rap, except that would be selling it short- Nacho is on-point at all times. Though Nacho himself is totally badass, much has to be said of his consistently great collection of cohesive yet diverse beats, supplied in full by Seattle-also duo, Blue Sky Black Death, a duo that were all over Nacho's debut, but this time around are the sole beat suppliers and to this point I haven't seen put a foot wrong- even I would sound pretty good rapping over these beats- which shouldn't sound so fluid amongst Picasso's stream of consciousness flow and love of misleadingly simple yet engrossing choruses, but both elements sound better for having met. On old-but-not-so-old outing For The Glory, the best track was the opening track, on Lord Of The Fly the cream of the crop creeps up at the very end, the glorious closer, Maintain, which see's both Nacho and Blue Sky Black Death hitting their stride and it acts the the victory lap for this free album which I recommend legally downloading before someone realises we should be paying for it.

Jay Edwards.