- I think there have been a whole bunch of people wandering what on earth Kimya Dawson and Aesop Rock together in concert - what the HELL that was gonna sound like. Finally I've had a chance to listen to Kimya & Friends new album Thunder Thighs and I can tell you it sounds ... good! Let's get the whole anti-folk meets hip hop thing out of the way first. I'm almost surprised that I didn't realise how well Kimya's skittery, whispery anti-folk could work if someone gave it a little shove into the hip hop realm. I was too busy worrying that Aesop Rock's rapping would be forced to hammer along over the top of Kimya's tiny little acoustic guitar and it would be really awkward and embarrassing. Not that way at all - Kimya has in fact beefed up her sound impressively: there's a thickly muscular, maximalist width when it really gets going. You can hear her more traditional, oddly quiet style morphing into this new gusto on tunes like Miami Advice where Aesop Rock drops in as a guest MC, or catch her going all out and rapping on the thumpy Zero Or A Zillion where Aesop contributes hilarious hype MC screaming in the background. The chorus on that one proclaims "The music doesn't change / The songs remain the same" - although she's talking about the nature of popularity - there are some rather obvious and pretty fortunate ways that isn't true here. More so, you can hear Kimya making some pretty serious concessions to more accessible songwriting, with traditional rhythms, songforms and big sing-along choruses - Thunder Thighs is the better for it. Perhaps most importantly Kimya's lyrics are both incisive and funny in a way that I've felt has been kinda missing for a while now (a friend of mine pointed out she must finally be over the baby-blues). Hey, speaking of which, you can still hear a few of her children's songs chucked in which is pretty eye-popping when one second she's singing about adventures with Mr. Bear and the next it's drug and alcohol abuse, intensive psychotherapy and suicide. Just for good measure - you fans of yore, don't you worry - there's still plenty of the anti-folk style and attitude ready to slap you in your aesthetic-sense and if it isn't enough then it'll punch you in the liver. Really, there's an even-handed temperament at work on Thunder Thighs; Kimya seems willing to give everyone and everything a chance (punches in the liver aside) and rather than coming off as lukewarm and meh, there's a strength and power that courses through her conviction and it feels like something everyone should hear.