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By the Time I Get to Phoenix
Studio album by Injury Reserve
Released	September 15, 2021
Recorded	2019–2020
Genre	lo-fi Experimental hip hop Dark ambient post-rap
Length	41:14
Label	Self-released
Producer	Injury Reserve (exec.) Parker Corey SADPONY Jam City Body Meat Morgan Simpson
Injury Reserve chronology
Injury Reserve (2019) By the Time I Get to Phoenix (2021)
Singles from By the Time I Get to Phoenix
"Knees" Released: 11 August 2021 "Superman That" Released: 1 September 2021

By the Time I Get to Phoenix is the second studio album by American rap group Injury Reserve, released independently on September 15, 2021. Dedicated to late member Stepa J. Groggs, who died during the recording of the album, It has widely been considered the first post-rap album.

The basis for the album derived from an improvisational set in Stockholm, Sweden, which was part of the tour for their debut eponymous album.

The album features Bruiser Brigade rapper, ZelooperZ, with production contributions from Black Midi drummer Morgan Simpson, as well as Body Meat, Jam City, and SADPONY.

As opposed to the sound of their eponymous debut, By the Time I Get to Phoenix is more Dark ambient in it's sound, and has widely been considered post-rap.

The album was supported by two singles: "Knees" and "Superman That".

Background

Set in Stockholm

Ritchie claims that this performance did not change the style of the rest of the live shows, but this performance had "spark[ed] our interest off the stage, especially when we got back and really listened to the one-track." The group was originally going to post the full set onto YouTube, but due to the website's copyright system, it got flagged. Ritchie states that "if it didn’t, it probably just would have been up and we wouldn’t have thought twice about it", but it eventually became the basis for "Superman That".

Style

James Ward of The Indiependent finds that the album is "reminiscent of Radiohead's masterwork Kid A." Chris Deville of Stereogum mentioned influences from Kendrick Lamar, specifically DAMN. and To Pimp A Butterfly. Inscoe-Jones described the album as "desolate and broken", comparing it to Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds' Skeleton Tree (2016) and Purple Mountains' eponymous studio album (2019). In a 2021 Pitchfork interview, the writer, Dylan Green,

Concept and inspiration

The album is a retrospective on the events that took place in the year that the album was recorded in, 2020. Grayson Cattlett of 34th Street Magazine likened the concept to Bo Burnham: Inside. Liam Inscoe-Jones of The Quietus compares By the Time I Get to Phoenix to A Tribe Called Quest's final studio album, We Got It From Here... (2016); as both are tribute albums to deceased members, while also featuring contributions from said member.

Liam Sherman of The Emory Wheel describes that the album is comparable to the five stages of grief. With the opening, "Outside", displaying isolation and anger; with the two closing songs "Knees" and "Bye Storm" being acceptance.

Genre

Many sources have described the album as post-rap.

Contents

Tracks 1-6

"Outside"

Ritchie ends the second verse on the song with the lines: "There is no happy medium / That is nothing, that is nothing."

Berkeley B-side: "Ritchie With a T manically delivers stuttered lines consisting of rants about Redditors and his fears of facing death and grief. At four minutes in, the instrumental ends Ritchie’s rant with a danceable drum sequence and hyperventilated breathing. In comparison, all other Injury Reserve releases offered a moshable introduction as seen on Floss, where they dismiss all of their genre labels with an infectious chorus on “Oh Shit!!!.” “Outside” is uncharacteristic from their older work, proving how their headspace as a band has significantly progressed for the worse on this release."

"Superman That"

"Superman That" was labelled by Anthony Issa of The Concordian as a "weird blend of EDM, autotune and rap."

"Ground Zero"

Described as Lynchian, "Ground Zero" continues the album's political imagery; Ritchie has multiple references to the COVID-19 pandemic, such as sanitiser and face masks. The drums in the song fade out halfway, while Ritchie raps about touchdowns and iced-out jelwery. Alton Sturgis of Berkeley B Side state that the song's "surreal motifs" apply to a hospital setting during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Release and promotion

Following a year-long silence, the album's release date and name was revealed on the group's social media alongside a statement with no prior warning. The album was made available for pre-order the same day via Bandcamp. The lead single, "Knees", was released the following day accompanied by a music video.

Another single, "Superman That" was teased on August 30, 2021 through their social media. It was released on September 1, 2021 with a music video. Simultaneously with the release of "Superman That", a black vinyl pressing packaged with a poster limited to 1,000 copies was made available on their website.

A week prior to the release of the album, an international tour was revealed with musicians Zeroh & Slauson Malone as supporting acts on the American leg of the tour. Tickets for all touring dates were made live on their website on September 10, 2021. Due to unforeseen circumstances, Zeroh was replaced by electronic producer Colloboh as a supporting act. On November 2nd, it was announced that frequent collaborator and musician Body Meat would join the European leg of the tour. Native dance troupe, Indigenous Enterprise opened the New York show without any prior announcement.

Two days prior to the release of the album, a release show limited to 50 occupants held in Palabra in Phoenix, Arizona was announced via their social media. It was held on September 16, 2021, one day after the release of the album and was livestreamed on the group's Instagram. Shortly thereafter, the group announced a 2 hour radio mix for English online radio station NTS. It featured remixes of Soulja Boy's 2007 single "Crank Dat" and the Jockstrap song "The City". It also featured edits of the released singles, "Superman That", and "Knees".

One day prior to the release of the album, another smoke-colored vinyl pressing limited to 1,000 copies without a poster was announced on their social media. It was made available on their website coinciding with the release. The album released worldwide on September 15, 2021 through streaming and digital download. A general release red-colored vinyl and merchandise was made available on their website for one week following the release.

In an interview with Anthony Fantano of The Needle Drop, the group revealed that the album was completed in the final months of 2020, and was to be released that year, but their record label Loma Vista refused to release it commercially.

Critical reception

Professional ratings

Aggregate scores
Source	Rating
AnyDecentMusic?	7.6/10
Metacritic	82/100
Review scores
Source	Rating
Beats Per Minute	80%
Clash	9/10
The Edge
Exclaim!
Loud and Quiet	6/10
WRBB
The Daily Californian	4.5/5
Pitchfork	7.7/10
The Line of Best Fit	8/10
Tufts Daily

By the Time I Get to Phoenix was met with universal acclaim. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from professional publications, the album received an average score of 82 based on 9 reviews. Aggregator AnyDecentMusic? gave it 7.6 out of 10, based on their assessment of the critical consensus.

Critics commented on the jarring experimental nature of the album in comparison to previous releases. Wesley McLean of Exclaim! deemed the project "the most experimental and least accessible Injury Reserve project thus far, abandoning any semblance of tradition or convention", and went on to herald it as "an abstract, melancholic and affecting body of work that is not only another incredible addition to a stellar discography, but a magnificent and moving tribute to a friend gone too soon". Jack Oxford of Clash similarly commended the innovative production, calling it "a truly dystopian impression of despair, smashing together polar opposite genres to create something wholly new" before pondering if the album could be considered "post-rap". Liam Sherman of The Emory Wheel states that By the Time I Get to Phoenix "should set the artistic standard for other modern rappers."

James Ward of The Indiependent called By the Time I Get to Phoenix "the most important experimental hip hop album to emerge in recent years", noting the album's "unfiltered presentation of emotion and masterful blending of normally discordant sounds." Stephen Kearse of Pitchfork writes that, with the album, they "reintroduce[d] themselves as wide-eyed explorers, a rep that suits their fascination with rap’s mechanics, its margins, and its future." In a highly positive review for The New Yorker, Sheldon Pearce discussed the effectiveness of the group's multi-genre approach, writing, "It’s in the smoking wreckage of the Injury Reserve sound that the members found the radical yet tuneful music they’d been seeking all along—it isn’t rap or pop or punk, but it’s also all of those things at once". Philip Mlynar of Bandcamp Daily listed By the Time I Get to Phoenix in the September 2021 Best Hip-Hop on Bandcamp list, noting that the album "upholds Injury Reserve’s forward-thinking reputation while ushering in a welcomed emotional depth." Another Bandcamp Daily reviewer, Vance Brinkley, listed the album as the album of the day, stating that it is a "raw record, but the emotion that lies beneath its hammering sonics make it a world worth returning to."

Reef Younis of Loud and Quiet says that "this wasn’t the album Injury Reserve set out to make, but as difficult second albums go, we should just celebrate the fact it’s here at all." Ian Fredrickson of The Daily Californian calles By the Time I Get to Phoenix "[their] most impressive work to date." He writes that the album "unapologetically discuss[es] the ups and downs of life all whilst commemorating the talent and mourning the loss of band member Groggs." Reece Beckett of The Edge called the album "an intensely emotional and fantastic experimental record that feels like a genuine leap forward in hip-hop history."

In Liam Inscoe-Jones' review for The Quietus, he states the themes that were present in Injury Reserve's best music was the struggle of "overcoming impossible hurdles"; listing their "struggles of age, paycheques, and industry connections". He notes that, "with the death of Groggs, the album depicts the bad ending", as they did not succeed. In the start of the review, he claims that there was an "alternative reality where [they were] as big as Drake, mentioning their second mixtape Floss (2016)."

According to Joshua Robinson of HotNewHipHop, it was either "praised for being experimental or criticized for being unlistenable.". In a more mixed review, Joey Arnone of Under the Radar criticized the disorganization of the release, describing it as "a patchwork of ideas than anything, resembling a puzzle with all of its pieces scattered", while praising the emotional depth of tracks like "Top Picks for You". On the other hand, Enrico Meza-Cuadra of Miami Student says that By the Time I Get to Phoenix "is challenging and at times overwhelming, yet it's this same quality that makes it deeply impressive."

In an interview published a month after the release of By the Time I Get to Phoenix, Corey discussed reviews of the album: "They assume the readers are too stupid. It's degrading, in my opinion, to think that people aren’t capable of dense engagement with things." He added that, when most critics discuss the political aspects of the album, "it’s just the most surfacey shit. In some of these reviews, the one that I have in mind, it’s literally just stating that something happened in the world. There’s just so little room for any critical engagement... You can approach things from way different angles. When I see "pandemic, protests, climate," it just it honestly breaks my fucking heart."

Year-end rankings

In Cole Quinn's list of Ten Best Albums of 2021, he ranked By the Time I Get to Phoenix at the top of the list, calling it "the most groundbreaking project I've listened to since Radiohead's OK Computer" (1997). In an editor's list of 10 best albums conducted by Tufts Daily, By the Time I Get to Phoenix ranked at number 6 on Geoff Tobia Jr.'s list. In a reader's poll held by Pitchfork in 2021, By the Time I Get to Phoenix was ranked at 34.

Year-end rankings for By the Time I Get to Phoenix

Publication	List	Rank	Ref.
The Daily Evergreen	Ten Best Albums of 2021	1
Dallas Observer	Observer Music Critics' Picks For Best Albums Of 2021	1
Sputnikmusic	Staff's Top 50 Albums of 2021	4
Tufts Daily	The Top 10 Albums of 2021	6
PopMatters	The 75 Best Albums of 2021	11
BrooklynVegan	30 Best Rap Albums of 2021	14
Spin	The 30 Best Albums of 2021	19
NPR Music	The Best Music of 2021	20
Beats Per MInute	Top 50 Albums of 2021	39
Consequence of Sound	Top 50 Albums of 2021	41

Track listing

All tracks credited to Injury Reserve. All songs produced by Injury Reserve unless noted.

By the Time I Get to Phoenix track listing

No.	Title	Writer(s)	Producer(s)	Length
1.	"Outside"	Angel Gilberto Rada Requiz[a] Jordan Groggs Morgan Simpson Nathaniel Ritchie Parker Corey		6:14
2.	"Superman That"	Charlie Somerset Pailthorp Wayne[b] Georgia Elizabeth Ellery[b] Isaac George Wood[b] Luke Jay Mark[b] Lewis David Evans[b] May Kershaw[b] Ritchie Tyler Eva Beatrice Hyde[b] Corey Groggs		2:40
3.	"SS San Francisco (feat. Zelooperz)"	Groggs Mark Edward Smith[c] Ritchie Stephen Hanley[c] Walter Williams Corey		3:51
4.	"Footwork in a Forest Fire"	Groggs Ritchie Hanley Robert Fripp[d] Corey		3:36
5.	"Ground Zero"	Brixe Smith[e] Groggs Karl Burns[e] Smith[e] Ritchie Hanley[e] Williams Corey		2:25
6.	"Smoke Don't Clear"	Christopher Taylor Groggs Ritchie Corey	Injury Reserve Body Meat	2:30
7.	"Top Picks for You"	Jack Latham Jeremiah Raisen Groggs Ritchie Corey	Injury Reserve SADPONY Jam City	4:32
8.	"Wild Wild West"	Groggs Ritchie Corey		2:28
9.	"Postpostpartum"	Groggs Ritchie Tee Mac Omatshola Iseli[f] Corey		4:10
10.	"Knees"	Cameron Overeynder[g] Geordie Greep[g] Groggs Matthew Anthony Kwasniwski-Kelvin[g] Simpson[g] Ritchie Corey		5:03
11.	"Bye Storm"	Brian Peter George Eno[h] Groggs Ritchie Corey		3:40
Total length:				41:14

Sample credits

• ^{^[a]} "Outside" contains excerpts from "Panico a Las 5 A.M.", written and performed by Angel Rada. It also contains an excerpt from YouTube rap battle video, "DOT VS BILL COLLECTOR SMACK/URL RAP BATTLE", performed by Dot.
• ^{^[b]} "Superman That" contains excerpts from the single version of "Athen's, France", written and performed by Black Country, New Road.
• ^{^[c]} "SS San Francisco" contains excerpts from "Auto-Tech Pilot", written and performed by The Fall.
• ^{^[d]} "Footwork in a Forest Fire" contains excerpts from "Sailor's Tale", written and performed by King Crimson.
• ^{^[e]} "Ground Zero" contains excerpts from "I Am Damo Suzuki", written and performed by The Fall.
• "Wild Wild West" contains an uncredited excerpt from the Peel Session recording of "The End of Radio", written and performed by Shellac.
• ^{^[f]} "Postpostpartum" contains excerpts from "Nam Myoho Renge Kyo", written and performed by Tee Mac.
• ^{^[g]} "Knees" contains excerpts from "Sweater", written and performed by Black Midi.
• ^{^[h]} "Bye Storm" contains excerpts from "Here Come the Warm Jets", written and performed by Brian Eno.

Personnel

Credits are adapted from Tidal & Bandcamp.

Injury Reserve

• Ritchie with a T – performance (all tracks), executive production, recording, writing (all tracks)
• Parker Corey – production (all tracks), executive production, creative direction, writing (all tracks), artwork and packaging
• Stepa J. Groggs – performance (tracks 2, 4, 8–10), executive production, writing (all tracks)
• Nick Herbert – day-to-day management

Additional personnel

• ZelooperZ – additional vocals (track 3), writing (track 5)
• Dot – additional vocals (track 1)
• Jeremiah "SADPONY" Raisen – production & writing (track 7)
• Jack "Jam City" Latham – production & writing (track 7)
• Chris "Body Meat" Taylor – drums (track 5), writing (track 6)
• Morgan Simpson – drums & writing (track 1)
• Zeroh – mixing & mastering (all tracks)

Sources

Interviews

• Lewis, Dashiell (29 October 2021). ""I'd Rather Drop You in the Middle of a Discussion Than Tell You What to Think": An Interview With Injury Reserve". Passion of the Weiss. Archived from the original on 29 October 2021. Retrieved 27 May 2022.
• Green, Dylan (3 November 2021). "Injury Reserve Get Back Up". Pitchfork. Archived from the original on 26 January 2022. Retrieved 27 May 2022.