Post-Mortem: Ohana by Pepper
AYO. No, you ain't going banana-koo-koo-for-cocoa-puffs, today is a very special day here at Highly Regarded (depending on how you look at it...) since I'm putting out 2 Post-Mortems... that's right TWO WHOLE POST-MORTEMS b. You're welcome. But I'm sorry I'm not sorry, since this is really me making up for not having been able to go engorge my waistline with a Taco Tuesday, not to start getting worried though, that'll be returning next week bruhbruh. Now, without further ado, let me introduce this weeks Post-Mortem Port-icipants (??), Pepper AKA the LBJs of Hawaiian Reggae AKA the KDs of poonanis AKA the Kona Town Krew, and their brand new album Ohana.
Start You Up: 9/10
Dat BASS. Starting the album off loose like Bernie Sanders jowls yo. After a detour into shaving heads and sounding like Creed on their previous album, this song is breath of fresh Kona air. Getting right back to that sub-necessary bass lines and keys with the simple beat; it's just classic Pepper. Dropping this truth right prior to the summer is one of the greatest things to have happened yet in 2016 nahmean. Start You Up starts the following manual on how to seduce any member of society using music.
Vacation: 9/10
Who doesn't need a vacation? I've only been writing this atrocity post-mortem for a month (it's weird it's already been that long) and I could use a vacation. Sippin' bahama mama's on a wind sand beach with some chupies sounds good right about now ya feel me. This that track you pump during the montage you're playing over in your head before you board the plane to a water park namsayin. But Pepper is just wingmanning you with whomever you chose to fraternize con mi amiga Maria Juanitata nahmean.
The Invite: 10/10
As if getting you thinking about going on a vacation, Pepper gets the gears grinding about saying fuck it and just making your vacation spot you've found in to a stay-forever-cation spot. Becoming a hood transplant. What do you really need to go back to? Start a stand up paddleboard company and figure out where some good reef...er...is and I guarantee that you will have very few worries when it's sunny 366 days out of the year, crystal translucent-blue beaches, and being able to most likely swim with hundred year turtles. I mean these submariners have seen some shit yo. You don't live to be into the 3 figure age range and not have seen some messed up animal ish bro. We don't even know whats in the deepest parts of the water dog. Don't even have the technology. There could be some round table, red flashing screens of doom with their fingers on the button types of fish down there and we have no idea. What's stopping from some 20000 leagues under the sea motherfucker from taking over a nuclear sub? Just think about it.
Never Ending Summer: 9/10
This is when the album starts putting the sensual back into nonconsensual...consensually speaking. Hopefully you're right bout done with that swisher with that good-good and it's time to turn things to 11 with your companion for the evening nahmean. It's also just a pretty basic need of every human being to have a long time during the year to spend outside enjoying the good green earth we all destroy by existing as professional trash producers. Preferably one that doesn't have any particularly beginning end. Like a year round thing ya feel me.
Reckless: 6/10
This the jam that sounds so so on the actual record, but probably tears the roof off (or blows the cloud up off the crowd if it's outside ya feel me) when they slap da bass on stage throughout the tour nahmean. It ain't bad, but if you're planning to make the beast with two backs this track is a good time to go slip into something more comfortable while letting whoever is left to ponder what's coming next...because as the next three songs will show you the power of sequencing, there's quite a bit coming for you namsayin.
Wait: 9/10
Pepper have become the masters of the slowbuild nahmean. This that piff that you know the ladies'll just soak their socks at whenever it comes through the subs proper ya feel me. This track is like edging for your ears and you know that when Pepper goes on the road with this ish that you better bring the flock. This that hold ya girl close from behind and gently sway back-to-back shit, and not that that's a very hard moment in any dawg's life, sometimes it's what's gotta happen to facilitate various other activities later in the night b. Be patient and hold tight.
Big Mistake: 7/10
Thai Chi'ing the flow from Wait, Pepper helps you seal the deal with the closest organism you find yourself sexually attracted to ya feel me bruh. I mean...Wait into Big Mistake? This straight baby making music dawg. This that heart shaped velvet covered bed at the billionaire funded, man-made island in the South China Sea that the Asias are fighting over ya feel me. You pop the $3000 bottle of champagne covering the sheets with some man-made cavier nahmeannnnn.
Perfect Stranger: 9/10
If Wait is the foreplay; Big Mistake the hole slamming; Perfect Stranger is the cuddling. If you're in my bedroom AKA the tundra AKA Vladimir Putin-it-in's Dungeon this is probably when I fall asleep while looking like Adam from the Sistine Chapel ceiling pointing at the cab fare on the nightstand. Which will have one dollar. For it is a one night stand. See what I did there?
Bones: 7/10
This album is all about sequencing. Essentially a 30 minute expose on how to start, consummate, and end a courtship of a reciprocating participant of your sexual advances nahmean. After the cuddling of Perfect Stranger, this the congratulatory spliff song that you listen once you've cleared out your apartment of any non-rent-paying individuals who you don't feel like cooking any ham & eggs for breakfast namsayin. If you're the one who's making the walk of slain back to your living parts, this song is just as much for you as it is for the curb-kicking dickhead who was some east coast 3 stroke bloke since it's all about bouncing back and just repressing the blurry memory of what just occurred between two semi-conscious semi-adults. Eye of the beholder shit man.
Around: 6/10
Now that you've gotten your nut, puffed your piff, and Pepper knows it's way better to sell a 10 song album instead of a 9 track deck, the threw this song at the end that you can half-listen to while hitting the sack and then going to bed. It's, again like most filler tracks, not the worst. It doesn't make me want to go to the local bagel shop and stick my head in the bagel boiling pot or anything irrational like that. I'm not trying to go herd megalodons and attempt to escape one from within or anything. This is like loan interest, it's not the worst thing on the planet and you understand why it is a thing, but you know it's not making it any better namsayin.
Final Score: 8.1/10
Well there you have it family, 3.5 thumbs up for this ish b. Pepper lays it down slow and low and I'm not gonna lie to you, I can't complain. While maybe not as many pump-up, faster paced jams like the classics on Kona Town or No Shame but it's a step in the right direction after the stumblings through the Creed-era that was their self-titled album. Crank this. With the windows and/or top down on the laclac and enjoy yourself nahmean.