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FINAL BOSS
Produced by Lazerbeak
Guitar by Jake Hanson
Additional bass by Adam Hurlburt and Ben Clark
From the new album ALL HANDS out 01.27.15. Pre-order today at Doomtree.net
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(Sims)
There goes Johnny sweeping the leg / There goes Jake cuffing the hands / There are things that I’ll never understand / They’re just looking for a buyer / easy meat, cheap prey supplier / situation looking dire / shot back at the devil I was heavy under fire / It’s okay I’m reloaded / they can’t rap along but Goddamn they quote it / Goddamn it’s frozen / My heart is Minnesota, this boulder / If you didn’t notice, something inside of me is slowly exploding / I feel like Kobe on the sideline / Sidewinder missile, I am cyanide / inert for the last time, land mine / I am out of my Goddamn skull / pedal to the floor board I am all pulse / I don’t play fault, I just dust off / walk over them coals, iron out later / I ain’t waiting on an elevator / Each mark is a caption / Each line on my face shows exactly what happened
(Hook)
You’ll know what you need when it slips by / but I’m not looking back for the rest of my / Get up like I never fucking got up before / and I get it like I never fucking got it before / You’ll see how dark once they hit the light / know what I’ve made from the marks on my hands / Get up like I never fucking got up before / and I get it like I never fucking got it before
(Dessa)
Simon says / Miranda’s right / but William Tells it different / says Gideon / brought a rifle / was looking for a fight / The Housewives of Gomorrah / all boarded up from here to the border, sordid / falling on our own swords or standing still / heartbreak hill / I’ma make a fortune in small bills / to show that I can, give it back in my will / like the back of my hands I know hard work / my back, my hands / yeah both still hurt / Like a catamaran, two skins / one for the water / one for the wind / Like a battering ram, I get it in / lemme at it again and when the juniper blooms / we get a river of gin
(Stef)
Get up, let’s go, move homie right now / shut em up, they make it hard to keep the food down / Ninety-nine lives, livin by the Konami code / fold em all origami mode / Let the drama slow, never ever ever / I’m an adventure, keep em on they toes / Drippy-nose fucks flake, I dip past no breaks / skippin y’all, flipping y’alls hot cakes, eating / I’ma man the damn Weber / Stand aside, handle mine, add the cheddar / Kiss the chef / nah gut, skin, and eat the chef before he eats the rest / I’m here to keep the nest safe and sound the alarm / ride the earthquakes and hang ten harm / Y’all get tame, I’ma non-stopper / y’all flip the frame, we pull the copper
(Hook)
(Mike)
Python wings, viper claws / I been breaking all types of laws / diamond teeth, steel cut jaws / got raised by fightin dogs / Been around the block so many times, can’t find my house / wanna fit the earth in the palm of my hand but it keeps on bustin out / Father figure, figure 8, motherland turned motherboard / Satellite-ville fly the flag of the HD SMPTE color bars / Plasticine, whole world building outward / Second Life, no cheats for the first / Warp Whistle level up out the gutter, all hunger no thirst
(Wait for it...Hook)
Doomtree started as a mess of friends, fooling around after school, trying to make music without reading the manual. The group had varied tastes—rap, punk, indie rock, pop—so the music they made together often bore the toolmarks of several styles. When they had enough songs, they booked some shows. They made friends with the dudes at Kinkos to print up flyers. They burned some CDs to sell. The shows got bigger. Of necessity, Doomtree's seven members (Cecil Otter, Dessa, Lazerbeak, Mike Mictlan, P.O.S, Paper Tiger, and Sims) figured out how to run a small business. Lazerbeak's garage became the merchandise warehouse; P.O.S' mom's basement became the webstore. A decade and fifty releases later, it's all properly official—Doomtree is now a real, live label with international distribution—but not too much has changed. Doomtree still partners with people who aren't jerks. If they can't find something they need, they make it themselves. Although each member has a career as a solo artist, every so often the whole crew convenes to make a collaborative record as a group. The most recent Doomtree record was called No Kings. A lot of people liked it. Happily, some of those people were writers at places like Vice, NPR, Rolling Stone, etc. According to the Village Voice, Doomtree is "one of the most talented and dedicated rap groups working today." VH1 says the crew has "the aggressive energy of a punk act with just the right amount of hip-hop swagger." In support of No Kings, Doomtree made laps around the US and hit Europe a couple times too. They played at festivals like Lollapalooza, SXSW, and Belgium's Dour Festival.
The newest Doomtree record is called All Hands, due January 27th 2015. The title nods to the nautical rally cry, "All hands on deck," and the album stands as the most collaborative and cohesive project the crew has yet produced. The production from Cecil Otter, Lazerbeak, Paper Tiger, and P.O.S twists through 13 booming tracks, building the raw and epic soundscapes that the group has become well known for, while adding more of-the-moment musical elements and techniques for a genre-spanning effect. This is the sound of old friends fine-tuning their craft, both together and individually, for over a decade, and it shows. Lyrically, All Hands sounds hungry as all hell. The three-year gap between Doomtree albums has given each of the five emcees substantial time to grow as solo artists, and the group's return finds everyone tour-tested with plenty to prove. Sims, P.O.S, Mike Mictlan, Dessa, and Cecil Otter drive home razor-sharp cadences, hard-hitting punchlines, and monstrous choruses, passing the spotlight back and forth until the house lights come up.
To write All Hands, crew members sequestered themselves in a cabin with no cell reception to distract from the task at hand and no neighbors to be bothered by the music playing through the night. The process informed the product: the record creates and operates within its own sphere—a particular mix of menace, humor, beauty, and adrenaline. Though the Minneapolis sound is present on All Hands, the record is as much a product of seven friends, relying only on each other, working in international waters.
Both the catchiest and densest album in the group's catalog, All Hands adeptly walks a tightrope of immediately memorable hooks and in-depth lyricism that rewards repeated listens. The result is equally worthy of up-to-11 trunk-rattling drives as it is late-night headphone sessions.