Clipping - Splendor & Misery album review: hip-hop space opera lost in loop

You have to admire a band who risk an out-there concept for an album. In the case of hip-hop trio Clipping, Splendor & Misery is pitched as a space opera about "the sole survivor of a slave uprising on an interstellar cargo ship and the on-board computer that falls in love with him".

Ensuring that the music fits between those lines is one task, and it's important, too, that the concept doesn't overwhelm everything else. The album shows off Clipping's ensemble skills, with inventive production turns from William Hutson and Jonathan Snipes, while rapper Daveed Diggs can go to lyrical places few others reach, as the magnificent All Black shows.

But the need to keep everything within the conceptual loop means tracks often suffer. We know that Clipping can craft might and heft, but this too often fails to engage.

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