B. Dolan - "Fallen House, Sunken City"

Fallen House, Sunken City is B. Dolan's second full length album and entirely produced by anticon. producer Alias. On this album, he has appeared to have left his post-apocalyptic bomb shelter from The Failure and found that the only survivors of the devastation were corporate cutthroats and political war hawks.

From the very beginning, the album feels like an album, which you don't see much anymore in the age of artists trying to sell 99 cent iTunes singles instead of the whole record. Toward the end of the first track, "Leaving New York" Alias cuts in a sample that simply says "I too suffered for my art, now it's your turn." This sample isn't just badass, it's prophetic for the rest of the album and necessary to know to prepare yourself for the experience of listening to the album.

From the intro to "Fifty Ways to Bleed Your Customer" on, it's relentless beats, relentless flows, or both. With lyrics about selling "brand X seat belts and planned obsolescence/Clinical trial cover-up, ever crash tested" the chorus, a repeated "I get bloody," seems to be coming just as much from the shady CEOs regarding their customers as it is from Dolan himself on his CEO lyrical murderfest.

On his first single "Earthmovers" he brings home quite a few of the hip-hop industry stereotypes he twists around for himself on this album. Now, "Earthmovers" doesn't address these issues, nor do any of the other tracks, but throughout the album you'll frequently get a sense of deja vu. The phrase "I get bloody" from the aforementioned "Fifty Ways..." sounds a bit too much like "I get money" to listen to Drake's or 50 Cent's songs comfortably again. The lyrics "West side, bail it out/South side, bail it out/East side, bail it out" at the end of "Economy of Words" are immediately reminiscent of UNK's "Walk It Out". "The Hunter" has some synth and swinging beats that sounds like everyone in old g-funk died, went to Hell, and became zombies. On "Earthmovers" the rhythm sounds like it would be a club banger, if something wasn't slightly off about it. And you realize that's the point when you hear a truck's reverse signal, then Dolan say "back that thang up".



By far, the best albums come in the latter half of the album. "Marvin" is simply an ode to Marvin Gaye. Even with all of his vitriol, quick raps, and raging beats, "Marvin" brings home the emotion unlike anything else on the album. That's not to say the other songs are bad, it's just that this one is better. You can almost see Dolan in the studio, his jaw becoming limp and his eyes hitting the floor introspectively, and realizing something about himself every time he quietly says "Marvin was left with a hole in his chest," barely articulating the last word.

And, to be frank, "Border Crossing" is my shit. I love that fucking song. The beat sounds like a marching band in an empty brick room, and that's because it is. The chorus, "caught up at the border of the living and the dead" and the beat make you feel like your funeral is taking place on the river Styx, Dolan is eulogizing, and Alias is giving you a military funeral from Hell. It's the most crowded I've ever felt desolation.

Between reptile men ("Reptilian Agenda"), vampire hunting ("The Hunter"), and sex workers ("Body of Work"), there's rarely a chance to breathe, especially when every silent moment on the album feels less like a reprieve and more like Dolan is just reloading.

The album as a whole seems to sway heavily between breathtaking and suffocating. As much as the album seems to be needed to be taken in one dose, it's hard to sit there and take the fifty minutes straight to the head. I don't know if that's because of the money- and single-fixated artists that I mentioned before, or if it's because it's simply TOO relentless (a phrase that, until now, I've only used for death metal albums that think "hard" means "tuned lower and played louder"). But unlike those death metal albums, by the end, you feel like the endurance challenge that is Fallen House, Sunken City was worth it in the same way that winning a football game is. You may get pummeled on the way to the end, but that feeling lets you know that you did something after it's all said and done. From there on out, you can sit back and watch the game's highlight reel.


Your tour guide to the apocalypse.