Bushwick’s reclusive Billy Woods has once again tossed out one of his cryptic introspective message-in-a-bottle albums. Following 2013’s highly-praised Dour Candy produced by indie-rap super producer Blockhead, it maintains Billy’s acerbic assessment of life and struggle. In contrast to his highly political work in side project Armand Hammer, this album feels more like a stack of random diary pages ripped out and read before being doused in kerosene and ignited. But with track names like “Zulu Tolstoy” and “U-boats” and lines like “That great escape – tree of knowledge, bagged and sold by the eighth – it only took one snake,” it’s not without its social commentaries. It moves quickly with few tracks even reaching the three-minute mark, but, knowing Billy, this is probably just a clandestine jab at audiences’ diminishing attention spans. For an artist as prolific as Woods, one can only wonder what would happen on the day he truly “wrote nothing.” Billy will be performing alongside Open Mike Eagle and The Karma Kids at Baby’s All Right in Brooklyn on Sunday 4/19. – BrokeMc
