Lese Majesty

A brontide is an explosive sound believed to come from earth tremors. Fittingly, Lese Majesty resounds just as seismic.

Shabazz Palaces are often as mystifying as they are mind-bending, but they’re in a class all their own.

Something wonderful and terrible has happened in the world of Shabazz Palaces, and there’s no choice but to join the wild ride.

Like floating from level to placid level in Monument, listening to this record prompts your imagination and encourages discourse and reflection. Not the academic kind, but the kind of communal discovery people have been doing for ages.

They work fully as standalone tracks, but feel even more substantial when taken within the overall structure of this beguiling, addictive album, which finally turns this strange duo's intellectual eccentricity into their greatest asset.

Lese Majesty gently disorientates you with dizzying vibrations, droning, ephemeral space sounds and abstract noise pieces (the weirdest being the utterly formless “Divine of Form”) that don’t so much blow you away, as lull you into a deep cosmic trance. It’s really quite beautiful.

Lese Majesty is an entirely different beast than Black Up, and the group manages to continue sticking out in the hip-hop world for their incomparable creativity.

Shabazz Palaces let a little fresh air and whimsy slip into their dense melange of whispered rhymes and slack-jawed space beats. [9 Aug 2014, p.67]

Whether or not you’re willing to put in the time, Lese Majesty holds attention as soon as opener “Dawn in Luxor” kicks in. That’s plenty to like.

The soul of Shabazz Palaces is pairing next-gen sounds with classic brass-tacks show-and-prove emceeing, and Lese Majesty tugs those extremes as far as they've ever been pulled; that it never shows signs of wear speaks to the strength of the bond.

If you're willing to take the trip then you'll be rewarded with an album that's breathtaking in scope and unlike much else you're likely to hear in 2014. [Sep/Oct 2014, p.81]

Shabazz Palaces deserve credit where it’s due for building their sound outward; if Black Up established their status as hip-hop outliers, then Lese Majesty solidifies their place in the pantheon of rap’s oddball geniuses.

Unlike most things that labour under an impression of being overly, scarily brainy, it is anything but difficult to love Lese Majesty.

The aesthetic is head-scratching; ideas are stunted and unreadable as themes unless you look at the music as an arc. But the duo is clever enough to generate an initial sonic mystique that makes you long to figure out exactly what you’re listening to. And that’s the mark of a lasting record.

It's accessible enough to be listenable, challenging enough to be interesting, and has many layers for the listener to unfold and decipher.

Lese Majesty is a seriously weird album, but it succeeds in calling the genre’s current established order to question and challenging what it means for something to be considered a hip hop record, all while remaining sonically pleasing enough to keep the listener engaged with the ambitious message that Shabazz Palaces is adamant at getting across.

While there are songs of undeniable artistic invention (“Dawn in Lexor,” “#CAKE”) there are also moments of ostentatious indulgence, intellectual handstands that feel like ends in themselves. But then, that’s always a hazard with a band this original and audacious.

As a statement of blingy opulence, it’s a big look. As gangsta move, it’s pretty potent too. At the same time, though, it proves that while Shabazz Palaces are definitely moving in hip-hop’s orbit, they’re spinning further out than most.

It's a shame that such a vanguard effort is weakened by a few clever and jokey interludes that don't warrant a return, but that just leaves Shabazz Palaces room for a proper masterpiece as the brilliant Lese Majesty is so very close.

Shabazz Palaces offer an ethereal conglomerate with a prophetic voice, a gutsy move that's more than paid off here.

As it is, not every experiment on Lese Majesty works, but when they do, the results are spectacular. And even when they don't, the lovely sense that you're listening to an album genuinely unlike any other is pretty overwhelming.

It is a record to indulge in, one melting synth note at a time.

In parts, this is the most melodic--and pretty--Shabazz Palaces have ever been.

It's a much quieter album than its predecessor, more interested in fingering the tears and rips in its luxurious, ambient textures than Black Up's intergalactic boom-bap. It pulses and shimmers like light bouncing off gold, burnishing Palaceer's radiant visions. [Aug 2014, p.51]

If you’re after blunted beats and wordplay that reaffirms your belief in rap as urban folk music, then you’re in for a shock. But for anyone looking for a mind-expanding trip to the outer edges of the solar system, these rap futurists are your guides.

The Shabazz sound is sprawling and promiscuous, but also deep, which might make for uneasy listening. [Aug 2014, p.79]

At eighteen tracks, it never really drags at any point, and a lot can be said for Butler's captivating songwriting.

It’s a fun and somewhat liberating thing to listen to, a horribly frustrating thing to try writing about.

The seven suites are not only easy on the ears, but they also offer depth for those listeners wishing to dig deeper than the smooth sounds.

His dazzling feel for 21st-century psychedelia pushes this well past nostalgia tripping--and while the verbal abstraction gets thick, there's serious pleasure in plumbing it.