Album Retrospective: The Gaslamp Killer - I Spit On Your Grave

Album Rating: B-

It’s hard to put into words exactly what  I Spit In Your Grave is, because the album’s so vivid that images come to me instead. Windows rolled down in San Francisco. The summer air beating down on lovers that are simultaneously growing together and apart. An addiction taking hold on a new victim, beguiling him only to beat him into submission. The urban landscape presenting opportunity, but also betraying hope while nobody’s looking.


The Gaslamp Killer’s 2008 mixtape offers a little something for everyone, at some point at least. It begins comfortably enough, bearing easygoing funk as if it’s the most natural thing to do. I Spit On Your Grave doesn’t take long to descend into chaos, though, and alongside this shift is an impalpable darkness that takes root, spreading more and more with each passing minute. What starts off as a straightforward trip-hop mixtape evolves into something much more sinister, vicious synth-led beats that belong in a dim dancehall. The mixtape never loses its focus, just distorts it over and over again, changing course repeatedly until it’s easy enough to forget where we began in the first place.

All in all, I Spit On Your Grave is an album that isn’t ever as important as in the moment it’s being played. Aside from the occasional catchy funk riff, it won’t stick with you in the long run. What you will remember, though, is the effect that the music here has - how it has the capacity to flash from almost indifference to mass importance in what seems like no time. I’m not sure that I’m going to listen to I Spit On Your Grave again, but I can tell you it’s a journey that I don’t regret embarking upon.

Listen to I Spit On Your Grave in its entirety here.

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