When Life Gives You Lemons, You Paint That Shit Gold
Fiction/Geffen
Four stars

Early in the current decade, Atmosphere emcee Slug — maybe the best underground emcee of his time — was flexing his creative muscles. When underground trends shifted back to a more boom-bap sound, so did Slug, who, with producer Ant, has since released over a dozen half-excellent albums. Now bigger than ever, Atmosphere is taking chances again with Lemons, recording with live musicians (both TV on the Radio and Tom Waits make appearances, among others) and focusing on subject matter not found on usual hip-hop albums. Lemons is fittingly Atmosphere’s most interesting and least accessible record to date.

Sounds like:
Sage Francis, Deep Puddle Dynamics, Eyedea