Complete 180 from Rj

I did not see this coming. I don't know who could've. When I put on Rjd2's latest release, The Third Hand, I expected more of the instrumental rap songs I loved from his previous efforts such as Deadringer. Even the intro, a short, wordless throwaway, had me ready for some head-nodding hip-hop. Instead, as soon as "You Never Had It" kicked in, I spent the next 45 minutes trying to figure out if I was playing the right album.\nOver the first half of the album there is barely any evidence that this is made by the same guy who is known for putting dozens of samples in a single song; in fact, there isn't a sample to be found, RJ plays all of the instruments and is the only singer on the entire album. The music on here is closer to Of Montreal or Eels than anything resembling rap, as the majority of the cuts use keyboards and synthesizers in a decidedly un-hip-hop way. RJ's voice sounds cold and mechanical, like a guy afraid of singing, and the vocal tracks appear buried in the mix to make the lyrics seem muddled and incomprehensible. This is not necessarily a bad thing, however, because the lyrics that are decipherable don't offer anything particularly new and mostly stick to common pop themes, making the need for this release all the more confusing.\nEven the three instrumental cuts on the album do not resemble much of his old work at all. The greatest strength of old tracks like "Ghostwriter" was that they were fully fleshed rap songs even though they lacked the lyrics that are usually thought of as the basis of rap music. The songs without words on here, like "The Bad Penny," sound as if they are tossed off and incomplete.\nTo Rjd2's credit, this is the first album I have heard in a long time that actually picks up as it goes on. Some vestiges of his old persona shine through on cuts such as "Beyond the Beyond," which has melancholy, haunting background vocals, soft drums and funky keyboards worthy of a hip-hop record. In fact, while none of the songs totally deviates from the danceable-pop sound, the second half is filled with familiar-sounding drum loops and keyboards resembling the old RJ.\nFans of music are a fickle bunch, accusing their favorite bands of unoriginality when they make records similar to their earlier ones, but calling them sellouts or abandoning them as soon as they attempt an artistic leap. As badly as I want to go along on the leap, I just can't. I know that the intentions of an artist shouldn't affect the music he creates, but the feeling that RJ is just jumping on the indie-pop bandwagon stops me from diving in and appreciating this for what it is. Only time will tell if his jump from indie-rap powerhouse Def Jux to indie-pop haven XL has changed his style forever, but in the meantime this album is worth checking out just to hear a master at his craft experimenting with something completely different. I wanted to give the album an incomplete, because given Rjd2's output to this point, it seems unfair to give an album with such a radically new output a letter grade, but that shouldn't prevent fans of RJ fans of this style from giving this album a try.