OnCue’s Angry Young Man arrives with at least two heavy-weight co-signs. One is Just Blaze, the master producer who’s responsible for some of Hip Hops best moments, and Hudson Mohawke, the Scottish EDM mastermind. Those two appear here amongst a gaggle of young up-and-comers like CJ Luzi, Dream Koala, ARW and more, and they blend in well with the project’s sometimes-overwrought focus on booming production and either/or narrative. Ending up in New York City by way of Hartford, Connecticut, OnCue’s steadily released music since at least ‘09, with his last effort being 2013s Leftovers 2.
Geoff Sarubbi digs deep, and the deep emotions of OnCue’s stories have their dramatic aspects emphasized through the type of beats that the producers place behind him. This approach is, in turn, informed by the marriage of Hip Hop and alternative that’s been very popular lately (we’re talking to you Macklemore), and informs the pace of this well unified album. To be fair, this isn’t Cuey’s first turn at the genre-mash (his ‘09 tape Cueyfornication is entirely done on top of Red Hot Chili Peppers songs).
That said, the stomping, stadium-sized beats that are apart of OnCue’s world where everything is high stakes emotion and/or party anthems will fit neatly in any dorm-room in America. Gain filters from Just Blaze on “Don’t Forget Your Coat” and dramatic string breakdowns like the one on “Running” are just a few of the “alt” genre signifiers that are constantly upping the tension of OnCue’s musical message. This is further strengthened by dramatic male crooner appearances on hooks as well as big, slow, double-time drums, as on “Every Last Dollar,” that are dripping in low-end frequencies and reverb. The flanger guitar on “Roleplay,” and the vocal scratches on “Stories To Tell” that are done without the sound of a deejay’s needle all speak to the Hip-Hop-cum-alt approach OnCue tries to take.
It’s easy to imagine some of these songs being played as the last call anthems of college bars everywhere. And building off the message of his previous We Smoked It All series, OnCue’s songs are likely to get plenty of both pre-game party and introspective headphone play. The best example of this being “So Much Love,” which doubles as both a “turn-up” and a cautionary yarn. This is where he is at his strongest: enabling us to dance while he weaves tales about abusive fathers and misguided youth. It’s a neat trick that’s helped along by HudMo’s impeccably put together dance tune.
AD LOADING...
Thus, OnCue has found a formula that works. Unfortunately, although this formula is crucial to his success here, it also keeps OnCue from entering the next sphere of artistry. Since, well, dramatic production encapsulating the duality of his pain and pleasure describes almost every track on Angry Young Man.
That’s a shame, because it usually works out when this rapper does try to do something different. On “Rolling Stone,” he ups his technique with longer rhymes and more complex sentence structures when he raps, “They say I look like my father / I say, I look like me, motherfucker ain’t ask me, so why bother / It’s been done, even back when you was just around, playing cops and robbers.”
It’s not often that OnCue gets as introspective as he does on “A Rolling Stone,” when he dexterously flips the “rolling stone” metaphor of a father who sleeps around into a compliment for a child who refuses to be trapped by history. The excellence of “Rolling Stone” is also the album’s curse, however, as it reveals just how little he flexes his lyrical and musical muscles throughout. So, while ‘Cue’s “Angry Young Man” proves he’s got much potential, it also suggests higher heights can be found in wandering beyond his hell-bent flow over guitar-synthed comfort zone.
