For more than a decade, the great underground rap veterans Aesop Rock and Homeboy Sandman have been getting together for a series of EPs called Lice. Those guys bring out the absolute best in each other. When they get together, they always sound like they're having fun without compromising the hyper-referential density of their styles. Whenever we hear about a new Lice release, it's a good day, which means today is a good day.
Aesop Rock and Homeboy Sandman released the first Lice EP in 2015, and they followed it with 2016's Lice Two: Still Buggin' and 2017's Triple Fat Lice. That means we haven't gotten a new Lice EP in a long time, though they did drop the beautiful one-off MF DOOM tribute "Ask Anyone" in 2021 and the one-off 2022 single "Catfish." Also, Aesop produced Sandman's 2021 EP Angelitu, and it had a song called "Lice Team, Baby." I'm delighted to report that they're back at full strength with the new EP Miami Lice: Season Four.
Miami Lice: Season Four has eight songs, which means it's the longest Lice EP. (They're calling it an EP, but I say eight songs is long enough to count as an album. If Led Zeppelin IV is an album, so is Lice IV.) Aesop Rock produced the entire record, and he put a whole lot of lively, funky bounce into these tracks. I'm on my first listen right now, and I'm sure that I've missed about a million intricate lines while typing up this post, but I'm already having a blast. There's one song that's just them guessing about the secret ingredients that they put in burgers. This is just good music, and we should not take these two guys for granted. Listen below.
Miami Lice: Season Four is out now on Rhymesayers.
