Panacea's striking LP, The Scenic Route, ripples with introspective rhymes and production. The creative spark that Washington, D.C.'s K-Murdock and Raw Poetic dubbed Panacea was formed as a side project around a larger hip-hop band called RPM. The Scenic Route's organic elements would probably spoil in the hands of live jamming musicians, but as frequently as the album's production boundaries dissipate, the eccentricities are reined in.
Beat-maker K-Murdock has crafted unabashedly wandering structures, and MC Raw Poetic peppers each cut with worldly yarns, beaming on the "T.R.O.Y."-like "Pops Said" between analog swells and guitar riffs. The floodgates containing K-Murdock's prog-rock tendencies on that track nearly burst in a reverb-loaded coda before "Epiphany" opens in much the same fashion. Ambient street noise and the sound of jet engines suit a focused Raw Poetic on that song, and just as self-enlightenment is an "alternate direction cracking open the door" on "One Shine," it's also an accurate description of Panacea's masterful approach to hip-hop.
