Thankfully, it's overshadowed by songs that are straight-up playful: The bongo-augmented beat to 'Bring Black Pluto' is a return to what Aesop and Blockhead do best, and while the connection between demoting Pluto as a planet and Pee Wee's Big Adventure are tenuous to me right now, anyone who fits in a reference to Large Marge and the eye of Cerberus in the same song surely earns extra points in heaven.

I often miss the Aesop Rock who strolled through the grimy back alleys of his city just looking for a story to tell on old tracks like '6B Panorama' and 'Skip Town' (both from Float) but 'None Shall Pass' is like a quick drive through the same city years later when it's become too dangerous for anything more than a glance out the window.ДЄbstraction is an easy screen, however, and you may not notice the dark co-dependency tale of 'Fumes' move over the line from frank slice-of-drug-life narrative to insensitive and bitter through the hissing wet consonants of his delivery. The atmosphere is grim, certainly, but with generous bounce and a wry grimace, and it's a microcosm for the vibe of the whole record in addition to being its best track. 'None Shall Pass' itself slides past on a near-disco beat layered with eerie, broken children's keyboards and ominous clean guitar that Aes wraps his words around nimbly and capably in a way old-school nods like '11:35' only hinted at. The title track quickly steals the show here, however, a stunning shake-up in both beat and delivery in Aesop Rock's oeuvre. He's got enthusiasm, enunciation, and even hooks this time: The 'how alive/too alive' call-and-response from opener 'Keep off the Lawn' is custom built for audience participation, and 'Catacomb Kids' begs listeners to follow the bouncing ball even if you can't make out every young, suburban misadventure he wedges into the lyrics.

That isn't to say Aesop Rock has become impenetrable that would imply he's no fun. None Shall Pass even throws in some laid-back rock riffs, some futuristic funk, a generous dash of psychedelia, and, of course, Aes' favorite ingredient: paranoia. Luckily, Aesop Rock's latest album, None Shall Pass, is a diverse collection of beats- from his classical-sampling comfort zone courtesy of the invaluable Blockhead, to looser more traditional hip-hop, to more than a few things we haven't heard him try before. When you've got a delivery this dense, all that's left for the confused or the impatient is the tracks, and the Definitive Jux roster has often (if not always) served particular tastes on that front. If anything, his lyrics are harder to follow now, and even with the 80-page lyric booklet from his last EP or the transcription of 'Citronella' on his myspace, having the words spelled out for you doesn't mean it's going to be easy. Aesop Rock's most distinguishable characteristic, his relentless verbosity, shows no signs of slowing- for the mainstream, the uninitiated, or even fans who couldn't keep up with Bazooka Tooth.

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