1. E-40 - Revenue Retrievin': Overtime Shift
I totally slept on the first two Revenue Retrievin' albums when they first dropped last year, mainly because my respect for E-40's unique style and lengthy career has always exceeded my interest, and I only have one of his '90s albums, so checking out two new albums at the same time seemed like a big investment of my time. Then pretty much every rap fan whose opinion matters to me seemed to love those records, and he dropped a couple more so I decided to catch up on all four simultaneously, just mainlining this ridiculously overwhelming amount of music from one artist for the last few days. So far Day Shift is my favorite of the 2010 albums and Overtime Shift is my favorite of the 2011 ones, but those are just first impressions, don't know if that'll change. There are so many sonic pleasures in the production -- the stumbling left hand piano notes on "Drugs," the low fuzzy synth of "Hillside," and I'm starting to get into a groove of enjoying E-40's weird flows and slang like I hadn't as much before.

2. Parts & Labor - Constant Future
Parts & Labor are a band that just consistently hits a lot of pleasure centers in my brain, from squealy distorted synth textures to a thunderous, muscular rhythm section to big wind tunnel rock anthems, and so them not switching up a whole lot over the last few albums, even through lineup changes, is pretty much fine by me. I still have a hard time picking favorites out of their last 3 albums, so it may be a while before I have any idea how Constant Future compares to Stay Afraid or Receivers but it's definitely a worthy addition to the catalog. At the moment "Echo Chamber" feels like the standout banger.

3. J Mascis - Several Shades of Why
It's interesting to realize that this is the first time in a quarter century career that J Mascis has written and recorded a set of a acoustic songs -- his only previous acoustic record, 1996's Martin + Me, was a live recording full of Dinosaur Jr. tunes. It seems like such a natural fit for him, especially given how good a lot of the acoustic and/or downtempo moments are on various Dinosaur and J Mascis & The Fog albums. So I was surprised that I didn't love this off the bat, and that it felt a little too dry and lacking in atmosphere, but it's been growing on me, seems like a real slow burner.

4. E-40 - Revenue Retrievin': Graveyard Shift
I may not like this one as much as Overnight Shift but it's not a really wide gap in quality, the whole series is incredibly consistent. The beats on "43" and "Spooky" in particular are just killer.

5. Rich Boy - 12 Diamonds
Rich Boy's carving out an interesting and unlikely career as a mixtape rapper, ever since 2006's "Throw Some D's" and the ensuing 2007 self-titled album unflatteringly cast him as both a one hit wonder and the less interesting foil to super producer Polow Da Don. 2008's Bigger Than The Mayor was great and 2009's Kool-Aid, Kush & Convertibles was kind of a drag by comparison. And after I heard good things about this one and checked it out, it was kind of initially depressing to see that it featured a remix of the latter's super annoying title track. But overall there's some jams on here, Supa Villain is almost as well suited a producer for Rich Boy as Polow, and there's a great stretch of low key soulful beats in the second half with "Struggling" and "All I Know."

HONORABLE MENTION: Mike Watt - Hyphenated-Man
I already covered this album in this space in October 2010 when it was first released just in Japan, and put it on my 2010 year-end list, but in March it finally got a proper U.S. release. I feel like it'd be redundant to list it again, but if I were counting it, it'd definitely be #2 or #3 on this list.

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