Album Review: 24/7 & Tony Mahoony- The Room Full Of Empty Bottles

The Room Full Of Empty Bottles LP (Album)
Artist: 24/7 & Tony Mahoony
Year: 2011
Rating 7/10

    The Room Full Of Empty Bottles is the debut album of veteran battle rapper 24/7 completely produced by Tony Mahoney. The production is smooth, making you just want to vibe out and have a few drinks while listening. 24/7's voice meshes perfectly with the tone of the album, it sounds dry as if he he had just had a few drinks before recording before it compliments the songs instead of detracting from them. In perfect contrast to 7's voice the sound quality and production is every bit as polished as you can find on an album. There is an ongoing myth that battle rappers can't make music, but 24/7 proves that the cliche doesn't apply to him in the slightest. He creates songs with clear messages and switches up his flow nicely on each track while managing to throw in good hooks which is the biggest problem most rappers have with their music. Usually they rely on someone else as a crutch for their hooks or use them to carry them through a song, but 24/7 holds down the whole album by himself without a single guest appearance.

    The album is kicked off with "The Anonymous Alcoholic" where in the intro he says "The greatest thing about this album...is that none of ya'll are going to like it". His indifference towards your opinion of his music is a recurring theme, he makes his music for him doesn't care in the slightest if you appreciate it or not, he doesn't do it to please you. The beat is smooth, it sounds like the child of hip-hop and blues giving it an original sound. 24's flow is perfect and sets the tone nicely for the rest of the album. The following song "Last Call" has a faster pace and beautiful piano in the beat coupled with a few witty lines throughout the song. The next song is about him performing a song he wrote live and getting no love for it because the crowd is used to more simple songs. Sadly, songs like this is what I have a problem with on this album. He spends more time talking about how he goes over heads than he does actually going over anyone's head with new topics. "The Underground (Pipe Dreams)" isn't a bad song at all, but rapping about writing a song that you feel is a classic without showing us the song is question is just not a good idea.

    The album slows down in tempo again with "The Point Of No Return" which samples a woman singing in what sounds like Latin in the beat. The lyrics have a darker tone than the songs before, but still have the theme of not caring of other's opinions. This transitions into the faster paced "Screaming Walls" which goes into more detail of 24's annoyance with everyone around him and his antisocial views. "The Never Ending Story Of The Parasite" is last song for this half of the album and has a similar theme as the last two songs with just more detail, but he switches up his flow and delivery in way that doesn't make the topics sound stale at all. All throughout each song there gems of wordplay giving them all massive replay value.

    "The Industry (Death To The White Man)" and "The Warden" are about the music industry and how 24/7 wants to stay independent to keep his artistry intact and the war in Iraq respectively. Regrettably neither topic is exactly unique and has been done a few times better in the past. There isn't any real new insight to the situations that we haven't heard before which gives the listener little incentive to keep the song in their library.

    "My Apologies" has a depressing beat to  go along with the introspective lyrics picking up the album's quality again after the last two songs. The next song "Abandoned House" is the only song that suffers from 7's voice on the hook. On every other song his voice goes well with the beat, but on this particular track the hook would have been much better if said by someone else. The verses make up for the hook enough to salvage the song, but it's hard to keep the thoughts of how good the song could be with a feature just for the hook out of your mind. Oddly enough the closing song "Battle Cry" doesn't have the same problems, the hook is actually very nice. As with all of the other songs on the album the production is stellar as are the verses.

    Despite all of my gripes with the album it still manages to be one of my favorites of 2011 which should be a testament to how good 24/7 really is as a lyricist and how impressive Tony Mahoony is as a producer. While the album isn't perfect it's still tremendously enjoyable and warrants a purchase. The Room Full Of Empty Bottles is an LP with an original sound which goes a long way in today's age. By the album's end you should walk away a fan and will be looking forward to what he's going to release next.