With major labels, when albums get pushed back, that usually means that the label and the artist are at an impasse in their views about artistic expression vs. commercial viability. In the most unfortunate of cases, it means that a really interesting album will get shelved indefinitely. However, when an independent artist has an album that gets pushed back, it’s not nearly as damning a message. Most of the time it’s purely the result of working with smaller budgets and coordinating schedules with other artists, producers, and engineers. So when bleubird’s album kept getting pushed back last year, I wasn’t too worried. First of all, he was never a pop act, so any label working with him would have to know what they signed up for. Secondly, Fake Four didn’t bury the story, they instead tried to keep the hype going and encourage his fan base to be patient. So while CANNONBALL!!! might have taken longer to come out than originally anticipated, it was merely because the Ft. Lauderdale emcee wanted to make the best album possible, and had to overcome a few obstacles to achieve that. Now the album is finally seeing the light of day, I can safely say that it was worth the wait.

For CANNONBALL!!!, bleubird wanted to push himself outside of his comfort zone and create a more personal album than he has made in the past. To accomplish this, he teamed up with Astronautalis and Radical Face to co-produce the record, and all three encouraged each other to step outside of their normal range of material to make something different. Together they assembled a really interesting mix of music, and we get a great insight into bleubird through his lyrics. He delivers personal tales of his family’s past and his own life while also discussing politics and mixing in some nice tongue-in-cheek humor. The album opens with “Fog Rollin,” which builds slowly in a dark tone, layering fuzzy, dissonant keyboards that give way to a bright and open chorus with drums and piano providing a touch of grandeur while bleubird declares “I just rode in on the fog to let you know it’s all going to be okay/Your life doesn’t have to be just like it was yesterday.” It’s a fitting introduction to CANNONBALL!!!, which provides plenty of the bleubird that fans already know, with his wordy, rapid-fire, slightly nasal and high pitched delivery, but also delivers plenty of unexpected moments. The first few songs that are dark and serious in tone, including the moving tale of his family’s Italian heritage in “Giehe 1977,” named after the wine his Grandfather bottled in honor of bleubird’s birth. Just as your ears are getting into a comfort zone, we get “Black Sandcastles,” which sounds like a pop/dance track from the late ‘90s, with a fun rolling bass line, but features lyrics about the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. This is one of my very favorite types of songs - the political dance number. I anticipate that the song that will divide listeners is “Christian Wife.” bleubird and singer-songwriter Lynne Piper teamed up to reinterpret the Louvin Brothers’ song “The Christian Life,” this time reworking the lyrics to be about a man’s roving eye. This isn’t to say that it’s bad, but rather that I anticipate that listeners will be divided over whether or not they like the inclusion of a humorous country-gospel song in the middle of their hip hop album. It’s by no means my favorite part of CANNONBALL!!!, but I appreciate it’s inclusion in the scope of making a varied and challenging record. One of the more interesting tracks on the album is “Pimp Hand,” which sounds like it could have a home on Destroyer’s Kaputt, which is to say that it’s reminiscent of the soft rock/R&B of the early ‘80s. The lyrics, despite the title, are actually quite introspective and romantic, with bleubird declaring “Thought I knew girls, thought I knew beauty until you said my name.”

CANNONBALL!!! isn’t perfect, but for covering a lot of ground, everything comes together quite coherently. It’s easily bleubird’s most ambitious release to date, and he really pushes himself to expand his sound, and it makes for a really interesting and rewarding listen. It might have taken him longer than he would have liked to get this record made, but if the results are this good, he should always take this much time making his albums.