While Auckland rapper and poet Tourettes (real name Dominic Hoey) is not so much of a smart aleck on fourth album Tiger Belly, he's just as clever, cutting, and hilarious.
Whether he's mouthing off about only having two emotions ("boredom and lust"), big upping himself on Everybody Loves Tourettes (and rightly so too), or at his deadpan best about not being a great swimmer ("I saw Jaws too young."), he is one of local music's top wordsmiths with a refreshing say-it-like-it-is roughness to him.
And with a vast and adventurous palette of music and beats (that could stand up as a record on its own) courtesy of Saan Barratt from country band the Vietnam War, this album is more than a worthy follow up to his eerie, often aggressive, and funny - albeit sadly under appreciated - 2009 offering Who Said You Can't Dance To Misery?.
There are rowdy party highlights like the pulsing dynamism of So Happy, the brutally frank Drug Problem (akin to a hip-hop honed psychedelic Pixies), and opener Tonight is a weird and wonderful mix of frenzied 60s pop, steely surf music, and shouty Beastie Boys back when they were more punk than hip-hop.
But it's on the subtle, more contemplative tracks like Valentines For Vampires, and narrative-driven epic Caspa and Alice, which at eight minutes long is more like a short story than a poem, where Tourettes is at his best.
