New Release: Depart From Me by Cage

Track Listing:

Nothing Left To Say

Beat Kids

Dr. Strong

I Found My Head In Connecticut

I Lost It In Haverton

Teenage Hands

Eating It’s Way Out Of Me

Kick Rocks

Captian Bumout

Strain

Fat Kids Need An Anthem

Look At What You Did

Depart From Me

I Never Knew You

“When you grow tired of lying on the ground, people walking on you: If you get to your feet and struggle to stand and people you know withdraw their hands and you don’t know why. I know why.” - “Nothing Left To Say”

Most rappers need songwriters to create something for them to spit out, but all Cage needs to do is write about his life and it is far more interesting. New York City rapper Cage was born Chris Palko in Würzburg, Germany where his father, Bill Murray, was a member of the Military Police Command stationed in Western Germany. The family was later relocated to New York because of his father’s heroin addiction, where he was abused by his father and after the age of eight, his stepfathers. Chris was put into a mental facility at age sixteen, originally for two weeks to escape jail time, for almost eighteen months.

Depart From Me is a series of well-written confessions from his time on Lithium and pre-FDA approved Prozac to cigarettes coated in embalming fluid. The album is Cage’s second full length since getting off hardcore drugs and shows a more progressive style of rap.

F. Sean Martin produced most of the album which caused Depart From Me to fulfill a sound all of its own; there are more experimental rock beats than on any of his previous work which caused some fans to feel skeptical about the direction Cage’s music is going. His first album, Movies For The Blind, is a raw cut of his lyrical talent and clearly shows his rapping style. Due to his drug use, the production of his first full length suffered but hardly detracted from its success.

Following his first album, in 2005 Cage released Hell’s Winter, which introduced the freshly cleaned-up rapper and his new perspective on music. While this album revolutionized the style of Cage’s lyrics, it wasn’t until Depart From Me that the musical aspect of the songs was innovated.

Intricately woven together, the album holds a strong and steady trio of guitar, synth and drums throughout almost every song which allows easy listening, but causes some songs to run into each other. The starting track, “Nothing Left To Say”, leads in with a strong crescendo and even stronger verses. “I Never Knew You”, his first single off the album, is one of his most musically diverse songs but also one of his strongest; the dance-beat “Captain Bumout” is also a new sound for Cage that shows his strength in songcrafting. Straying from autobiographical stories, “Look At What You Did” is probably the only song about vampires that has legitimate credibility and great production. Cage experiments to provide a break in his otherwise heavier material, “Kick Rocks” successfully gives two middle fingers to anyone in his way while “Fat Kids Need An Anthem” seems to only be present for comic relief.

It appears as if Cage is reinventing rap again, as his debut album set the largely unnoticed precedent for acts like Eminem, Atmosphere, Aesop Rock and other rappers in the late ’90’s. There are perks to being an underground rap star, though; Cage frequently collaborates with Daryl Palumbo, Aesop Rock, El-P, and collaborated with the late Camu Tao. He also fronts the Weathermen with Aesop Rock, Tame One, Yak Ballz, El-P, and Breeze Brewin.

The success of Depart From Me is largely due to Cage’s animated and unconventional rapping style that has only matured with the years. Collaborations with his producers result in layered material that is not only catchy and clever, but actually has significant meaning which is increasingly rare for music in general. Ambitious and out to get what he can, Cage’s next album will most likely explore more musically varied tracks with more attention to production. For now, Depart From Me still trumps all rap artists that are more concerned with being single, being on a boat, getting laid or making money.