Roc Marciano – Reloaded

Roc Marciano's been gaining high praise for Reloaded, the follow-up to 2010's acclaimed Marcberg. There's something about it which just doesn't sit right. Perhaps it's the lazy homophobic and misogynistic asides in the first track (“Homo swag, I wouldn't put it past you” and “Control a whore's mind like voodoo”), which speak of an unreconstructed, macho conception of what rap should be about. Not that this is a bar to enjoyment - it's just disappointing and lazy.

Perhaps it's the reliance on jazz, soul and film soundtrack breaks, which places the album sonically much nearer the median line of silver age '90s hip-hop than to the kush-powered experimentalism of Jeremiah Jae, or the neon-lit electronic paranoia of El-P. Marciano has a way with a slick couplet, doubling up poly-syllabic rhymes and painting vivid pictures. But taken as a whole, the album feels ultimately disposable, an also-ran take on the pimp aesthetic of Raekwon's Cuban Links.