Bad Time Zoo

by Sims

When I saw Doomtree perform here back in December, there was some mention of the fact that Sims had traveled to Nepal (it could have been Tibet, but that seems unlikely) to study Buddhism before starting work on this new album.  Whatever the degree of truth to that story may be, there is definitely a more spiritual aspect to Sim's lyrics on this, his second full-length album.

The songs on here are pretty political (even for a Doomtree record), as Sims talks about globalization, liberal guilt and self-delusion, and consumer culture.  He's not particularly angry on this disk, and is coming at things from a more philosophical and observational standpoint than anything else.

Musically, the album is very nice.  Lazerbeak produces all but the hidden track at the end (which is done by Cecil Otter), so there is a strong sense of consistency here.  Perhaps too much though.  The only guest appearance is by POS, and that's on the fourth track.  Somewhere towards the last third of the album, I always find myself hoping someone else is going to show up on a track, just to switch things up a bit.  Sims is a very capable rapper on his own, but I find I get a little tired of just hearing him.

That said, when all of the tracks on this disk are transferred to my ipod, I know each of them will be a nice surprise when they show up in shuffle mode.