Scallops Hotel - Sovereign Nose of Your Arrogant Face Album Review

Story posted January 16, 2018 in Arts & Entertainment by Zach Hall.

Milo continuously raises the bar when it comes to the style of art rap. With avant-garde style production and a knack for witty one-liners and introspective musings, Milo has truly made a name for himself in the genre. Milo also often releases projects under the alias Scallops Hotel and takes his already abstract style a little bit further. Scallops Hotel’s latest release, Sovereign Nose Of Your Arrogant Face, may have taken the style of abstract art rap a bit too far.

This latest release marks Scallops Hotel’s fifth full-length project, and for the most part, sticks to what worked for him in the past. Each song is its own collection of thought-provoking lines that break the typical delivery/energy seen by many of his contemporaries. While this metaphysical rap style has worked wonders for Milo/Scallops Hotel in the past, Sovereign Nose Of Your Arrogant Face may have taken it a bit too far. While Scallops Hotel does have plenty of quality lines on each song throughout the project, they are often buried underneath bars upon bars that seem to trade substance for a more artsy aesthetic. When this happens, it hurts the overarching themes of an album, and this case is no different. Scallops Hotel still has an intellectual energy behind his delivery that can make some of the more abstract lines seem almost pretentious. Substance aside, it’s clear that milo’s/Scallops Hotel’s skill as a rapper has increased with every new release. He continues to one-up himself in terms of overall personality and flow. These newer releases have seen Milo/Scallops Hotel don a much more aggressive and to-the-point delivery that allows him to put more emotion in each line. In regards to this, Sovereign Nose Of Your Arrogant Face exhibits this perfectly, and the album as a whole benefit for it.

Production wise, Sovereign Nose Of Your Arrogant Face is a bit of a mixed bag. On one hand, the minimalist, jazz room style instrumentals compliment Scallops Hotel’s abstract style perfectly. A majority of the songs on the project have this instrumental style, with varying piano licks accompanied by authentic style drum patterns, with the occasional guitar riff thrown in for good measure. This style of instrumental works well with the art rap subgenre and Scallops Hotel uses this to his advantage. Each of these tracks is produced well, which sees Scallops Hotel taking a step back from some of his more avant-garde style instrumentals from the past. On the other hand, nearly all of the tracks on Sovereign Nose Of Your Arrogant Face have this style of instrumental, with the exception of “Twenty On Five”, which uses a low vocal sample as the main focal point of the song, and “Rank, Title, Pressures”, which features synth chords that stay mainly in the back and don’t attempt to drive forward any kind of melodic component. This lack of variety between each track boggs the project down and leaves the whole thing feeling very repetitive. While the production on each track certainly compliments Scallops Hotel’s style, his lyrics alone aren’t enough to transcend the repetitive instrumentals.

Sovereign Nose Of Your Arrogant Face is a decent project, with plenty of clever and thought-provoking lines that Scallops Hotel is known for. The instrumentals help highlight this style and shed light on Scallops Hotel’s increasingly impressive flow. What keeps this project from being great are some missteps and missed opportunities. Scallops Hotel’s choice to double down on the abstract makes a majority of these tracks feel very dense, and at times confusing. The lack of instrumental variety on the album is also problematic because a more broad variety of instrumentals could have helped the project feel fresh while listening from start to finish. Sovereign Nose Of Your Arrogant Face is a decent project for sure but could have been so much more.

Rating: 7/10


Zach Hall is a junior majoring in broadcast journalism. To contact him, email zth5043@psu.edu.