Subtle
For Hero: For Fool
Release Date: Oct 3, 2006
Genre(s): Indie, Rock, Rap
Record label: Lex
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Album Review: For Hero: For Fool by Subtle
Excellent, Based on 2 Critics
Based on rating 8/10
Part experimental rock, part electronica, and part hip-hop, Subtle's For Hero: For Fool is a complex, innovative, sometimes bizarre, and usually utterly confusing journey into the minds of lyricist Doseone and his five bandmates. The album weaves its way through stories of a hero whose identity -- "another white rapper?" A member of the "middle class?" -- although never made explicit, acts as the Everyman in 21st century, post-industrial America. Life is bleak here, full of "guerillas" and other monkeys, of violence and hypocrisy and a slave-like adherence to money.
Opinion: Fantastic
Subtle's Doseone and Jel are involved with the perpetually out-of-place collective Anticon, whose members' interests include hip-hop, dance music, indie-rock and noise. Unsurprisingly, For Hero: For Fool won't make Anticon any less uncategorizable. Alongside MC/keyboardist Doseone and beatmaker Jel, Subtle also features cellist Alexander Kort, drummer/guitarist Jordan Dalrymple, and multi-instrumentalist Marty Dowers.