Six years after the death of founding member Stepa J. Groggs, the two surviving members of rap trio Injury Reserve have honoured his legacy in creating an evocative, emotional album (“My Ghosts Go Ghost”) about love, life, and the pain of moving on. Reinventing themselves as the duo By Storm, producer Parker Corey creates a dense network of tangled guitar samples and irregular drum patterns, with rapper Ritchie cutting through with a mixture of heavily autotuned hooks and emotional rap verses.
Injury Reserve started in Tempe, Arizona, as a jazz rap group that made a small amount of buzz in the underground scene with their first three mixtapes and one full length, self-titled album. Their last album, “By The Time I Get To Phoenix,” released following Groggs’ death, was a sharp change in direction, featuring experimental glitch-style production, a technique that Corey has continued in his production for By Storm.
“My Ghosts Go Ghost” opens with one of the best tracks, “Can I Have You For Myself?,” a stripped back, emotionally potent track featuring Ritchie’s strained, slightly off-key singing over a minimalist guitar track. It begins by focusing heavily on the lyrics, offering a glimpse into Ritchie’s mind following the birth of his first child, before bringing in drums and culminating in a cacophony of crashing snares and heavily chopped guitars.
One of the worse songs on the record, “Dead Weight,” sees Ritchie misuse the techniques that made Injury Reserve and By Storm so great in the first place. Despite a fantastic beat, Ritchie unfortunately gives a lackluster rap performance, without passion in many places, or generally in opposition to the beat with others.
What follows “Dead Weight” is a stretch of some of the more mediocre songs of this album, which seems too low a praise for what are some of the best rap songs of the year. “Grapefruit” is an eerily rhythmic track, with Ritchie’s unique style of rap flowing perfectly over the interjecting, whining cries of “grapefruit!”
The track is followed by “In My Town,” one of the most somber and emotional tracks on one of the most somber and emotional albums to come out of rap for a long time. Its seven minute runtime sets the song apart from the rest of the record, and the slow burn gives Ritchie’s words more weight.
“Zig Zag,” one of the leading singles released as part of the Injury Reserve rebranding, is one of the least accessible tracks on the album, a web of heavily cut guitars and obscurely timed drum tracks. However, once you get past the near abrasiveness of the drum patterns, the song unfolds into the emotional story of growing up.
“My Ghosts Go Ghost” only has one major shortfall: the song “Best Interest” featuring billy woods. The beat is grating, characterized by a high pitch squealing not unlike a rusty, badly oiled machine. The two rap verses, from billy woods and Ritchie, are uninspired and bland, as well as being differing tempos, but the worst part of the song is the lack of an emotional core, something that is present in the rest of the project.
The album closes with “GGG,” the closest thing to a title track on the whole project. The song is a final farewell to their late friend Groggs, with lyrics touching on the difficulty, yet necessity, of moving on. The song’s stripped-back production sets it apart, allowing the lyrics and the impassioned delivery to shine.
Most groups, especially trios, can never reach the highs that they once attained after losing a member. By Storm, the exception to this rule, have only proved their skill and cemented themselves at the forefront of modern experimental rap. This album is a strong opener to By Storm’s career, and is a promising example of what might come.
