Seattle-based Grieves is just your average tall, skinny, self-loathing and introspective Jewish rapper . . . which is to say that he’s not average at all. 88 Keys and Counting, Grieves’ sophomore effort, was released November 14, 2008 on Black Clover Records after the spectacular breakthrough effort Irreversible.
The album’s title is reminiscent of the piano jazz album of the same name by G. F. Mlely and the intro to the piece invokes the class and soul of earlier jazz fusion efforts with a cackling old-school-sounding monologue over simple piano.
On Catapults, the second track of the work, Grieves, born Ben Laub, bares his soul from the very first verse, declaring “I feel like the last lit candle in the back of my mind” over a beat that could make even the coldest hip hop fan smile with joy. The fusion of classic hip hop and classic piano is managed beautifully by producer Budo and Grieves’ introspective opinions of what Heaven and Hell mean in the grand scheme of human behavior. “Heaven is just a six letter word like crutch” and “Hell is just a four letter word like fear.”
After one reviewer called Grieves a “wannabe Slug [of Atmosphere] emo-rapper” after the Irreversible album, Laub could have created a more traditionally hip hop album, full of bravado, misogyny and references to sex, drugs and rock and roll. What tracks like Kings prove, however, is that Grieves is unafraid of the labels: he is unabashedly emotionally honest about what you should think about him.
“You don't need to fight me off, I'm well on my way. Gonna leave these cobblestones and matchsticks in the back of my brain,
I learned that you don't even have a single word that you can say that can make me quiver when you wave it like a knife in my face . . . your king is dead..
October in the Graveyard and Dead in the Water up the emotional ante with Grieves providing the clever lyrics as well as the crooning hooks over Budo’s fantastically untraditional hip hop beats before Life in the Hive, the album’s first instrumental effort, brings it back down, allowing the listener to take a breath before delving further into what has haunted Laub since the Irreversible release.
The album picks up lyrically with the story of Gwenevieve. Whether Gwenevieve is a real person in Laub’s life is anyone’s guess, but the raw passion with which Grieves opines about everything that makes her vulnerable and desirable at the same time is admirable. Everyone has had a Gwenevieve.
“She said the world paints a picture that makes her want to run, pull the stars out the sky and load them into her gun,” and . . . “She fights like a lover but sleeps with the enemy and acts like she's only getting close just to empty me.”
“ Gwenevieve, another hook for the line, in a perfect little painting of disaster in its prime, and I love it solely because it makes me feel alive when she sets the world ablaze and sees the fire in my eyes.”
Identity Cards, featuring Luckyiam, is another atypical hip hop song about just how atypical Grieves is as a hip hop artist with the premise being that no one can issue him an ID and tell him how to live based purely on occupation. The honesty with which Laub and Luckyiam, of Living Legends fame, speak of their lives both at home and on tour is refreshing and is balanced perfectly with an unbelievably upbeat piano-driven background put together again by producer Budo.
With two more instrumental tracks mixed between songs with titles such as Nature vs Nurture, Learning How to Fall and Greedy Bitch, Grieves and Budo tell the story of Grieves’ life since the now classic release of Irreversible, knowing when to pause to allow the listener to refresh his or her mind. The instrumental pieces The March and Exiting the Hive are the closest thing listeners get to an intermission in this most dramatic performance of hip hop theatre.
Grieves is a hip hop artist in the truest sense of the word. Whether a fan of hip hop or a fan of indie rock, listeners will appreciate hearing an album that is as beautiful musically as it is lyrically. 88 Keys and Counting is the story of life, maybe even the story of your life.
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