On Repeat: Run The Jewels Turn On The Hype Machine For RTJ4 With Yankee And The Brave

• Tristan Young @talltristan

If the days and weeks of introspective and solopolistic isolation have us all feeling a little docile, the always pugnacious Run The Jewels have finally returned at just the right time.  While there’s no telling exactly when RTJ4 will drop, the recently released single Yankee and The Brave clearly understands its purpose in being a riotous hype track, specifically geared to get you psyched for the incoming LP (not EL-P). It’s been a while since RTJ 3 and it’s display of slightly more non-linear and free form versing from Killer Mike and EL-P; You’d almost be forgiven for forgetting that they can target their lyrical sequences with the precision and velocity of a rail gun. The duo is relentless in Yankee and The Brave. Sheering walls of invasive drum machines build concrete barriers of noise that they still have no trouble splitting apart. Half way through Killer Mike’s first verse a trailing base guitar follows in his wake- reminiscent of something you might hear in an old Interpol song, so you can check off the requisite Brooklyn influence- rippling at just the right oscillation so as to be oddly pleasing amidst the rattling cacophony. Killer Mike recalls their defiant dressing down of the traumatic realities of corrupt law enforcement so fiercely pronounced in RTJ2, “I got one round left, a hundred cops outside, I could should at them or put one in between my eye”. He flips the circumstances towards the end, “the crooked copper got the proper I put lead in his eye, plus we heard he murdered a black child so none of us cry”. Interestingly enough, the lyrical structure of one of Killer Mike’s later verses is similar to his guest appearance on 3 Tearz by Danny Brown. Atmospherically speaking, it draws a lot from the heritage of RTJ1. Exhuming the monstrous mania of their first LP in its slightly ghoulish expressions, their newest offering plays around with unnerving low key moans and bulbous reverb. A droning melody built from analog fuzz slinks on the low end with pursuant malice. DJ Trackstar’s compositional aptitude has evolved light years beyond the 2013 debut; even with more sonic elements and competing sequences Yankee and The Brave is refreshingly streamlined. It’s indicative of a team operating at peak communicative efficiency. They know what to say and how to say it. The only unknown left worth considering is that RTJ4 release date. On that matter, EL-P is as succinct as one would expect: “Don’t ask when it drops we don’t know yet we will soon in the mean time punch a hole in the wall to this shit”.