When Life Gives You Lemons, You Paint That Shit Gold

Even though some might miss Slug's angst-ridden diatribes (Lucy Ford is nowhere to be found on this album), he manages to toe the line between rapper and griot better than he ever has before on this new effort.

Musically, Lemons is lusher and more ruminative than the harder-hitting Imagine, with producer Ant calling on Atmosphere's live backing band--plus guests, including Tom Waits (beatboxing!) and TV On The Radio's Tunde Adebimpe--to flesh out the sound, enhancing his already-organic approach.

Nevertheless, the lost lives and loves he sketches are so painfully familiar they feel like truth. And Ant's homey beats enhance the illusion.

The cumulative effect is a widescreen collection that seems destined to win a broader audience for the duo without sacrificing the intimate I-feel-you-fucked-up-life atmosphere of their best work. [May 2008, p.144]

The words are upfront, with a naturalistic delivery that sometimes recalls Kanye West. These are storytelling songs, not club tracks, moving at midtempos and often easing back toward ballads.

Being a gluttonous hard-ass has been a tough requirement to scratch from the 10 rap commandments, but a growing trend in transparent MCs finds Atmosphere atop the pedestal of its post-Prozac and Adderalled audience. Maybe good dads just make the world better, one damn fine album at a time.

For the first time, the duo forgoes Ant's sampled beats in favor of live instrumentals to back Slug's rhymes, which results in a sound that's far more textured and intricate than their previous five efforts.

More energy and less uniformly drab scenery might have kept these well-intentioned stories from blurring into each other.

Atmosphere play an autobiographical angle affectingly well. It’s an approach that’ll lead some to conclude When Life… is a little on the dull side, but with six albums under their belt seems the duo’s formula is not about to let them down just yet.

Add some beatboxing courtesy of Tom Waits (!), and you have an occasionally forced, yet boldly magnetic change of pace. [May 2008, p.94]

When Life… is not all bad, however. It is merely middling.

The piano twinkle and mere droplet of a beat on 'Like the Rest of Us' sounds like Slug doing Regina Spektor; the coos and plucks of 'Me' are Yael Naïm; the barista-strum acoustic rap of 'Guarantees' aims for Elliott Smith and ends up with Uncle Kracker; the skipping hand-clap gospel of 'Puppets' is pure Moby Playtime; and, for some reason, 'Dreamer' sounds like Michael McDonald--funkless, martial, stiff, and innocuous, perfect for an upwardly mobile 21-45 demo that seeks neither boom nor bap with their soy latte.

When Life Gives You Lemons, You Paint That Shit Gold is almost entirely forgettable.