| Allmusic |
 Putting his Anti label's indie rock connections to good use, Sage Francis’ Li(f)e features the alt-rapper collaborating with members of Califone, Death Cab for Cutie, Grandaddy, and other guitar-based outfits while being solely produced by Brian Deck, who had previously worked with Modest Mouse and Iron & Wine. Sonically, it’s a giant shift from his previous work as the otherworldly and often dark beats of the past are replaced by the traditional guitars, bass, and drums, but Sage is primarily the same, cynical as hell and able to knock listeners out of their comfort zone with lyrics that are as true as they are unsettling. As far as growth, his lurid and flippant lines -- a good example being “I heard God was coming/And she’s a screamer” from “I Was Zero” -- are complemented by more subtle blows against the empire as wisdom and restraint come into play on the album’s meatier numbers. When it all comes together, it’s magnificent, as when indie-riffing guitars, a surprisingly hooky chorus, and the whole “life equals lie” theme of the album combine on “Love the Lie.” You can bob your head and sing along as Sage covers a whirlwind of concerns on the track including God, girls, and staying together for the kids. Nearly as good is “Worry Not,” which is somewhere between a Tom Waits number and front-porch rave-up as it offers “Anxiety is a disease/You gotta learn to live with it” with banjo accompaniment. “Damned if you do/Damned if you don’t” is the closest thing to an answer here and sometimes the indie rock/alt-rap mashing seems nothing more than a well-executed exercise in genre-blending, but these are small complaints that will seem miniscule to the man’s loyal fan base. Taking on both the BS and sobering-side-of-life lessons while straddling genres would be difficult for any musician, but Sage did it and came up with a B-plus effort. More tangible proof that he’s a gifted artist....full text |
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| Dustedmagazine |
One would be forgiven for balking at a title like Li(f)e, which is heavy-handed in both implication and rendering, but Sage Francis has come by it pretty legitimately. Subtlety isn’t his thing these days — which is a shame, in that he’s more than gifted enough as a lyricist to keep on making his heady, refined Anticon-era noodle-scratchers — but it’s a decision he made a few albums ago and it’s one worth respecting, because he’s been tackling unsubtle problems and doing it well. If he says he’s here to talk about life, and how you can’t live it without confronting a lie or two, he deserves the benefit of the doubt.
And indeed, Li(f)e is an unabashedly big-scoped hodgepodge of afflictions and meditations and indictments, cautionary memoirs and smirking abstractions. Francis isn’t really angry this time out, as on, say, A Healthy Distrust, nor is he trying to outdo himself in quotability, as on, say, Hope. This album is fueled by, and commentary on, the darker parts of modern life — the lies, shall we say — but our host/narrator is comfortable with his perspective therein: a smart, honest curmudgeon who gets to moralize because he’s been there, too. He’s unflinching when he rises to confess — see “The Best of Times” and its litany of juvenile crises, or the vintage Francis high-concept gross-out “I Was Zero” (“I heard God is coming, and she’s a screamer”) — but confession and outrageousness aren’t the primary mandates....full text |
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| Pitchfork |
Sage Francis has never feared silliness. I once watched the burly, verbose indie-rapper end a show by kneeling and touching his DJ's turntables while the DJ chopped up Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech with the Hendrix version of "The Star-Spangled Banner". And he brings that same tendency toward ridiculously broad gestures in his lyrics, which bounce back and forth between leftist fervor and self-lacerating slam-poetry. So it's something of a pleasant shock to hear Sage begin Li(f)e with "Little Houdini" a straightforward story-song about a (real-life) car thief who keeps breaking out of prison to visit dying relatives. It'd be easy to lean hard on any sweeping truths about the human condition in that story, but Sage keeps things simple and straightforward, sticking to the narrative and showing an eye for detail and a sense of empathy. "This ain't no country-western song," he snarls a few times, and it's to his credit that he's sort of wrong.
The big news about Li(f)e is that it's Sage's indie rock move. Rather than sticking with old collaborators like Jel and Alias, he's recruited a backing band that consists largely of members of the post-roots-rock crew Califone. Various indie-rock big dogs write the music for a song or two: Chris Walla, Jason Lytle, the late Mark Linkous. The inevitable Califone/Calexico crossover finally happens here, with the latter's Joey Burns and John Convertino supplying the music for "Slow Man". These guys fortunately don't attempt to come up with some sort of warped dustbowl take on rap; instead, they just vamp away, confident that Sage will catch whatever groove they work up. And Sage sounds pretty good on this stuff, his husky, authoritative growl taking on the sort of gravelly weariness that suggests he's got a few Tom Waits CDs scattered around his tour-van floor....full text |
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