Benjamin Booker Lower LP (Clear Vinyl)

The last place you'll find Benjamin Booker is where he was yesterday. Following two critically acclaimed albums marked by his signature fuzzy americana-inspired garage rock and soul sound, world tours, and opening slots with the likes of Jack White, Tame Impala, and Neil Young…he disappeared.

"I wanted to get to this sound, but I didn't know how. At some point I decided I'm going to find it or die trying."

He spent years tinkering in a loft near Skid Row in Los Angeles before ending up across the globe in Perth, Australia. Trading stems via email, Booker crafted his third album with L.A. underground hip-hop mastermind Kenny Segal. The new album, Lower, mixes experimental hip hop, dream and noise pop, and singer-songwriter music into something that is entirely his own. Through the changes, Booker's lyrical exploration of pain and longing have been persistent.

Segal comes from underground hip-hop and Booker from retro-leaning rock'n'roll, but LOWER doesn't sound like any of those genres' past collisions. Instead, it takes the basic textures of rap rock—boom-bap beats, Deftones' icy ambiance, the corroded shredding of 'She Watch Channel Zero?!'—and fashions them into a new strain of beat-centric grunge.

Shoegazer, industrial, rap, surfer guitar rock… if you name it, you can hear elements of it in Booker's epic, layered encyclopaedia of sound. And yet, these are pop songs. Obviously not the cookie-cutter, formulaic pop that goes viral on TikTok, but the sort that might win over a diehard grunge-for-lifer as equally as it does a Tyler The Creator fan.

Where his debut album burst forth with Americana-inspired garage rock, his second album, Witness, revelled in its deep string arrangements and ballad-rock. LOWER is certainly a culmination of the two, and then some.

Booker's true range is realized with Segal as the two concoct a refreshingly personal and sonically risky LP.

Many years in the making, LOWER is a welcome return and a high water mark in Booker's career.

Benjamin Booker takes risks. He is certainly not one for pulling musical punches. When these risks pay off – as they do, on the whole – LOWER prevails as something utterly, fearlessly unique that makes the hair on the back of the listener's neck stand on end.