Gotee Records
2006
Word Of Mouth
About This Album
John Reuben's first four albums veered wildly between braggadocio and piety. It was an uneasy marriage -- the usual hip-hop swagger combined with impassioned calls to Christian service and humility, Reuben's razor-sharp wit and flippant tendencies tempered by his sometimes self-deprecating lyrics. His previous album, 2005's The Boy vs. the Cynic, played the Angelic John vs. Dark John angle to the hilt, with the strident smart-a** duking it out, song by alternating song, with the good Christian evangelist. With Word of Mouth, Reuben has found a way, for the first time in his career, to merge the best of both worlds into a seamless whole, and the resulting album is not only his most mature work to date, but also his most musically adventurous. Produced by Beck compatriot Joe Baldridge, Word of Mouth offers the typically eclectic Beck musical mash-up -- banjos colliding with samples from old Delta bluesmen, sappy strings meeting Bootsy Collins bass, surf guitars twanging, children's choirs singing, and Reuben riding herd above it all, his always obvious lyrical gifts honed to a new sharpness and precision. The sarcastic edge that has always characterized Reuben's best songs is well to the fore here.
Track List (try tracks 1,3,9 and 10)

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