Billy Woods has one of many highest batting averages within the sport. Between his solo data like Hiding Places and Maps, and his collaborative albums with Elucid as Armand Hammer, the person has a number of stone-cold classics below his belt. And, whereas nobody would ever declare that Woods’ albums have been light-hearted fare (these will not be social gathering data), Golliwog represents his darkest up to now.
This isn’t your typical horrorcore file. Others, like Geto Boys, Gravediggaz, and Insane Clown Posse, attain for slasher aesthetics and shock ways. However what Billy Woods has crafted is extra A24 than Blumhouse.
Certain, the primary observe is named “Jumpscare,” and it opens with the sound of a movie reel spinning up, adopted by a creepy music field and the road: “Ragdoll taking part in lifeless. Rabid canine within the yard, automobile received’t begin, it’s bees in your head.” It’s setting you up for the everyday horror flick gimmickry. However by the top, it’s psychological torture. A cacophony of voices varieties a mattress for unidentifiable screeching noises, and Woods drops what seems like a mission assertion:
“The English language is violence, I hotwired it. I acquired a maintain of the grasp’s instruments and acquired dialed in.”
All through the file, Woods turns to his producers to craft not low-cost scares, however rigidity, to make the listener really feel uneasy. “Waterproof Mascara” turns a lady’s sobs right into a rhythmic motif. On “Pitchforks & Halos” Kenny Segal conjures the aural equal of a POV shot of a serial killer. And “All These Worlds are Yours” produced by DJ Haram has extra in widespread with the early industrial of Throbbing Gristle than it does even among the different tracks on the file, like “Golgotha” which pairs growth bap drums with New Orleans funeral horns.
That dense, at instances scattered, manufacturing is paired with strains that juxtapose the real-world horrors of oppression and colonialism, with scenes that really feel taken straight from Carry Her Again: “Trapped a housefly in an upside-down pint glass and waited for it to die.” And later, Woods seamlessly transitions from boasting to warning folks about turning their backs on the genocide in Gaza on “Corinthians”:
In case you by no means got here again from the lifeless you’ll be able to’t inform me shit
Twelve billion USD hovering over the Gaza Strip
You don’t wanna know what it value to stay
What it value to cover behind eyelids
When your again turnt, secret cannibals lick they lips
The file options a few of Woods’ deftest lyricism, balancing confrontation with philosophy, horror with emotion. Billy Woods’ Golliwog is offered on Bandcamp and on most main streaming companies, together with Apple Music, Qobuz, Deezer, YouTube Music, and Spotify.