Calamity beneath the calmness.
Throughout the 28 years that New York rapper Aesop Rock has released music, he has perfected his niche in the underground hip-hop scene. His style of minimalist instrumentals and complex wordplay is most apparent on his newest album, I Heard It’s A Mess There Too. This project comes as a surprise follow-up to his previous 2025 release, Black Hole Superette, and Aesop Rock continues to refine his approach, leaning further into restrained production and sharp lyricism.
Similar to many projects that Aesop Rock has released in the past, his abstract wordplay has deeper meaning, with this album focused on anxiety, disconnection and everyday chaos. On the seventh track, “Oh My Stars,” he raps, “When I don’t know how to act I climb into my car and then I drive it off the map.” This is one of the more straightforward lines on this record, but still captures this feeling of unease. The eighth track, “Pay The Man,” focuses on his anxiety and problems in the world surrounding him, a common theme on this album. He states in the song, “Now the normals need a network of lenses with motion sensors/And hold their camera phones like loaded weapons, oh heavens.”
Sonically, as previously mentioned, the instrumentals on this record are intentionally uncomplicated, all built solely around a drum loop, bassline and sparse synthesizer or keyboard melodies. What may be repetitive for other rappers actually leads to a level of consistency that allows Aesop Rock’s lyrics to really shine on this project. The beats could be boring on their own, but paired with his vocals, they fall into the background as listeners get sucked into the vocabulary he spits. It should be worth noting that unlike most of his other projects, Aesop Rock did all of his own production on this album, leading to an album that is truly all about him in every sense.
The most ambitious track on this project is “Fun House Pinball,” a standout track that dives more into Aesop Rock’s anxiety and social surroundings while having some really fun bars intertwined. In the first verse, he raps, “Every lizard leapin’, I’m every bit indecent/Aiming for whoever presently king of the tetrahedron.” These bold lines make this song every bit more enjoyable, leading to the album’s clearest highlight. However, otherworldly vocabulary and flows are present throughout the whole project, and this song is not a fluke.
Overall, despite the themes of messiness and chaos being present throughout the entire album, Aesop Rock delivers a very cohesive and confident project with his personality on full display. Every song has a similar structure, but this leads to a consistent album, not a repetitive one. Ultimately, I Heard It’s A Mess There Too never loses its footing, and is another strong release by a legend in the underground hip-hop scene.
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