3 1/2

Minor rock-hip-hop-electronica innovations abound, especially when RJ is at his most melodically competent and experimentally restrained ala the title track. Occasionally drifting out onto block party style vacuousness and giving the feint vibe of trying harder to be unique then what is actually occurring, SWLS nonetheless comes chock full of engaging, and at times soulful, break-beating.

This was a true change of style from the excellent debut Deadringer. Instead of samples, RJD2 played most of the instruments himself and created a far more exotic and quirky but not less dynamic sound. I don't even know whether to call it hip-hop, or garage-salsa or whatever, but the album is perhaps one of the greatest and most original I have heard this decade!

With this album following Deadringer, Rjd2 goes from great to greater. He incorporates a wider variety of sounds than before, and finds new ways to make the listener connect with the music placed forth. This is a true album, much like Deadringer, and once you press play, your ears won't allow you to press pause, skip or stop. In my opinion, this is one of the most epic album of all times by the Greatest Musician Alive. Don't hesitate to buy this album, it will stay in your CD player more often than you would believe.

this was my first RJD2 album and I loved it. RJ has a wonderful talent as a DJ to piece together various styles of music in a manner I've yet to hear from another DJ. RJ is a hip-hop DJ (you can find him paired up underground rapper Blueprint, to form the group Soul Position), but I wouldn't consider this to be instrumental hip-hop. This is just fresh sounding music and truely a great album. I actually prefer this to Deadringer, even though many would disagree with me.

Rjd2 is nice, but a number of his songs tend to follow a very similar run down chord progression, and there's the feeling that some of the songs didn't sound all that different in their original non-sampled form, less so on this album, more so on the previous. Though, they're good songs. If i were to rate them on their production/sampling originality, i'd have to go 3 stars, but i'm going to rate them on their good songness factor.

On a side note, at only two places this album finds Rjd2 experimenting with a sort of Cornelius sound, and it doesn't go all that well. But the rest of the album far covers for it in to making it appear charming, rather than not.