Poverty, unemployment and dead dreams after one gigantic scam that made a small group of ridiculously rich people even richer – it sounds like something too familiar for us in Eastern Europe, but it is actually America we're talking about. And yes, the land of unlimited opportunity has sunken into a deep recession in which it is too hard for everyone but the super rich. And who else do you expect to come up with the perfect soundtrack for all this misfortune but Everlast, the hip-hop bard who sold his soul to the blues? Well, he has taken up on the task quite seriously and has managed to come up with his best album in a while. 'Songs of the Ungrateful Living' opens with a song that sounds much more like a farewell and a last will than a beginning – in 'Long at All' Everlast shares life's morals and wisdom over a fog of gently strumming guitars that sound like the wind brought them straight form Louisiana. And in the 14 tracks that follow he goes on to tell various stories from the ungrateful living mentioned in the title. He does it in the way any great American singer and songwriter would – by telling various life stories from a first person point of view. Here we have tales of all that is human: from barely making ends meet ('I Get By'), through fatherless homes, war and forsaken friends ('Little Miss America'), to the fallout between people ('Long Time'). Musically, Everlast also displays a lot of versatility without running too far away from the style he built up on his last four solo records – while in 'Rain' he raps over catchy funk, enhanced by some clapping, in 'I'll Be There for You' he goes for some pure blues, and then 'Sixty-Five Roses' is a ballad in which his thick voice is accompanied only by an acoustic guitar. The finale is a brilliant cover of Sam Cooke's 'A Change Is Gonna Come' – and this song, which is about the hope that keeps you together during hard times anyway, fits just perfectly in the album's context. 'Songs of the Ungrateful Living' is like the soundtrack to a loan you are never going to pay off, but its main quality doesn't come from lyrical insight or musical diversity. What makes Everlast's new album really good is the fact it is full of great, naturally flowing songs, in whose lyrics it is quite easy to recognize yourself.