Atmosphere wastes no time establishing how energetic and polished You Can't Imagine How Much Fun We're Having is-from the moment the thick beat kicks in on the opening track, the duo of producer Ant and singer Slug press forward unrelentingly, unleashing a series of tracks that compose their most well-rounded and musically coherent album to date.
You Can't Imagine How Much Fun We're Having puts Ant in charge, and he delivers tracks with speed and gravity that threaten to leave Slug in the dust. \The Arrival"" strikes with the full, lush blend of bass that makes for a party anthem. Following up quickly comes ""Panic Attack,"" a track addressing our society's infatuation with various forms of substance abuse. ""Do you call yourself a patient or a junkie / The only thing that separates is who takes your money,"" a line that would have sounded condescending on the beats of Seven's Travels, plays perfectly against the heart-thumping background.
Ant's beats complement and lift Slug's raps through soaring opera samples on ""Say Hey There,"" the upbeat piano on ""Get Fly,"" and the searing guitar on ""Smart Went Crazy,"" illustrating just how important the producer's role is.
In fact, other than the sole weak link ""Hockey Hair,"" You Can't Imagine is solid from top to bottom. Even the first single ""Watch Out,"" takes the familiar battle rap style of older releases and punches it up with skillful mixing by Ant. The guitar-laced ""Angelface"" juxtaposes Slug's romantic and political passion and dissatisfaction (""I love this fucking country / And she loved me more than I could imagine / So I waited till she slept, then I stepped into traffic"").
Throughout his career, much has been made of Slug's status as an ""emo rapper."" On the Lucy Ford EPs and God Loves Ugly, Slug earned the distinction (and all the comparisons to Death Cab for Cutie) by obsessing over his various love/hate romances. Remnants of this remain on You Can't Imagine, and diehard fans will not be disappointed. But this time around, Slug reserves his most concentrated blasts of emotion for a few tracks-especially the mournful ""That Night.""
""That Night"" is Slug's rapid-fire rumination on Marissa Zvaifler, a 16-year-old girl raped and murdered two years ago during a show by a registered sex offender working as a janitor in Albuquerque, N.M. Against Ant's full, soul-infused background, Slug spits with quiet restraint, communicating his sorrow, anger, disbelief and sympathy for the girl's family, all within two minutes. ""When I think about her mother / I become another number / That wants you to suffer,"" he says, and closes with, ""You're locked up for now, you have no more chances to steal the children's laughs / And if you ever find God you better pray to her and ask that we never cross paths.""
""That Night"" channels powerful emotions that have eaten at Slug for years, gripping the listener far more strongly than his occasionally tired wounded-lover routine.
In the end, Slug and Ant have undergone stages of maturation and emerged much better for it. The process may have resulted in some uneven and out of place tracks on Seven's Travels, but the sacrifice was worth it. And, as exciting as the Lucy Ford EPs and God Loves Ugly were, You Can't Imagine How Much Fun We're Having should be more so. Over their years of collaboration, the two now work so effortlessly that they should be able to put out a few more of these Midwest indie rap classics before they are done-and you can't imagine how exciting that is.
