It's not too often that an album comes across my desk. Because the desk I have was stolen from a Goodwill and all of my albums that I haven't ground up and thrown to the seagulls at the pier for some meal variety are digital now. Still, the visual metaphor comes across just as strongly, and serves as the best way to set the stage for another great review. Kiba Walker's new album XO is all the best of RuPaul and a chocolate fountain with all the chocolate replaced by chocolate wine. It's a hard driving, full of club bumping beats that manage to manifest into reality and take control of the car I'm driving while writing this. I'm going to take you track by track through this album so that you have a friend and that you don't feel as alone at the party that this album would theoretically be played at. Do or Die Do or Die is not only the opening track of the album but also my favorite and least favorite things to do. Kiba orders us to dance with him while ensuring you go down with him at the same time. You the dancer are implored to dance despite whatever theoretical haters are planning your demise through their feeble slays. But you have the rhythm and the curves on fleek, so you have the high ground (read: high portion of the dance floor) Black Gold After asking us if we're ready, Kiba takes us on another Gagaesque odyssey in Black Gold. Amidst the music and the dicks is a further exploration of the nature of being ice cold toward your fellow clubbers. Kiba's fierce delivery is like a cobra from the Reno desert about to strike upon this lizard who is just trying to review an album, please don't hurt him. This song epitomizes the virtues of black gold, possibly the most on point mineral that has ever been craved. Love/Hate Four letters of two different arrangements have never quite expressed the sharp emotions of this song. Haters are further vocally eviscerated by Kiba's hot fire, the likes of which melts his black gold into a monument of pure style. I feel it all in my brain, Kiba, and while I am quite tired, I feel wide awake. If Gaga's career were even more dead than it already is, this song could shake her grave. Ghosts Ghosts takes more of an pop ballad direction than the preceding tracks on the album. Though, none of the previously established edge is gone. Spirits are channeled through Kiba's driving vocals in the chorus, and are further conducted by the featured vocals by Josh Winchester. Harmonies in the final portions of the song synergize the sorrow of the track. I would definitely dance to this in a haunted house. Hella Not only does this song sound like a Swedish woman's name, but its crunk beats could reach all the way to the Netherlands. Kiba raps in baritone to start before going back to the Nicki Minaj-esque rapid fire delivery. The pop bridges and choruses serve as glossy transitions between the dark energies of the verses and beats elsewhere. I'm sure that Hella of Sweden would greatly appreciate this song as she dances in her likely European club of choice. Interlude This song reminds me of when I couldn't get signal on a stormy night out in the countryside. I was just coming back from an illegal rave in the cornfields of northern NH when the rain started to splatter upon my windshield. The heavy droplets almost smothered my car and swallowed everything in my vision. All I could hear was the sound of miniature aquatic explosions against tempered glass and the pounding of my anxious heart. All that gave me solace was the fact that this sentence is over and it's time for the next song to be reviewed. Flames Speaking of spitting hot fire, this song is more like Kiba is breathing fire. I feel bad for the Johnny in this song, because despite the cash that he purportedly has, it is likely much less in comparison to the talent riches that Kiba Walker is clearly demonstrating here. With dubstep wubs and subwoofer throbs, I couldn't help myself. I involuntarily whooped out loud and slapped the hot electric stove where I was hearing my ramen. Only then did I realize what it meant to be burned. Search and Destroy The slower beats of this track remind my feeble lizard brain of classic Justin Timberlake. Though his vocals never got so intense as Kiba's. The beats are in full effect here, filling every channel of my Amazon wireless headphones. You might as well go and search for your five copies of FutureSexLoveSounds and destroy them, yes, even the one your grandmother gifted you by accident, because it is not necessary anymore. By then, all of your mistakes will have been undone. Free Darealsound comes in on Free; Sampling Paranoia Agent, DRS evokes memories of Lovesic, casual guitars accompanying this vocals before Kiba sings in a language I have forever recognized but never have understood. I suppose my counselor was right; my internet diploma in Google Translate is of no use here. Still, I am glad that the tortured Gemini of the rap portrayed here has been set free. Nujabes would be proud, if he wasn't already in the tags of this review. The Boy Who Died Too Soon Another story to tell: I was once in a hospital waiting room. While I was there, I went to a vending machine. They only had candy bars and chips that tasted like barbeque cardboard pieces. Still, I inserted my Benjamin and picked what I wanted. As I was quietly gorging myself, a nurse outside was consoling a mother whose child had just stopped existing as soon as I ran out of ideas for this sentence. TBWDTS evokes some of the same sorrow I felt then, with vocals that remind me of the best of Green Day's more somber work. Though I didn't feel as bloated after listening to this. Wish I could say the same about Dookie. Eulogy In the spirit of good reviews like this one, all good albums must come to an end. Imagine me, a handsome lizard in an oversized tuxedo, delivering my review for this closing track. My non lizard mother is quietly crying in the front, while my father is off having a cigarette at the border of the metaphor. Kiba holds a microphone and raps to rapid bongos, followed by booming drums that spook the priest and make the corpse of ambiguous relation shake. Copperhead on the mic destroys the last fifty seconds of the album, leaving Kiba nothing but white hot cinders. XO was a trip that I wish I still had the souvenirs from. I must have lost them in the club, or in the car back from the rave, or in the pews of the church from the funeral. That's okay, since I have Kiba's words, as well as those of his talented collaborators, to carry me forward. Now, time to put on my good vest and get back to the club. There's a certain lizard gone whom everybody is missing. -- Deft Beck