Archive for January 2024

Another massively “meh” release from the Tempest era, which is unsurprising, all things considered. I would have to say in the case of Eye Of The Storm, it is the over-reliance on a rock/metal production to the tracks, which I’ve never really thought ICP is any good at. The production is pretty good though, so it gets middle marks. I cannot think of a single reason to pick this up and ever listen to it…

Falls a bit flat in isolation, with the usual fare from Necro against a fairly mid beat. Not bad by any stretch of the imagination, just fails to really capture any feeling, be that disgust, awe or anything in between.

Short, sweet but mostly pointless solo EP from Shaggy 2 Dope. I say pointless because J is on these tracks too and the whole thing is produced by Mike E Clark, so you might as well as slapped a fuckin ICP logo on this thing and be done with it. In fact, track 4 “Three Rings” ends up on Riddle Box anyways (with slightly different lyrics). I’m not complaining though, whatever name it’s under this…

A shining example of fantastic modern hip hop. Four albums deep and I’m starting to crave a little bit more variety from RTJ’s sound but you can’t argue with those insane beats (seriously, so so good and with pristine production) and excellent flows. A confident effort from a band that know they are at the top of their game.

Free from the Joker’s Card legacy, ICP was rudderless and without direction. Let’s just be honest; that’s how it was. Or, at least, that’s how it seemed at the time. I loved both Wraith albums as a teenager. I thought both of them were fantastic for completely different reasons. But when The Calm dropped, I was bored to tears. And then, The Tempest came a few years later and I could not have been more…

Like most early Wu Tang solo efforts, Ironman is more like an extension of the 36 Chambers early 90s freshness, with a ton of the MCs from the main release showing up here like they do across a gamut of different releases. Like, Raekwon and fucking Cappadonna appear on almost every single track as well as the cover art haha – Throw in that trademark RZA production and you’re onto a winner, of course. Essential…

This doesn’t sound anywhere near as bad as you’d think it would. To be honest, calling this an ICP release is really a stretch. I understand why it gets labelled as such, with the ICP gang existing a good while before ICP the musical project, but in J’s book he seems to make it out like this “Intelligence & Violence” project with D-Lyrical was something else entirely that pre-dated ICP. I guess he could be…

Die Antwoord has always been a guilty pleasure. Their legacy perhaps hasn’t aged that well, but when I first heard SOS (it was “Enter The Ninja” playing over the stereo in a bar in Amsterdam) I had never heard anything quite like it. The rapping is objectively terrible but it’s also very entertaining, the production is great and well, I fell in love with Yolandi Visser for a short while in 2010. Just being real…

Judging by the cover art this is a cheap cash-in “best of” that was supposed to collate some of ICP’s older stuff in one place for people new to the band with The Great Milenko. But don’t let the crappy cover art fool you. This is a great mix of old shit. A lot of the songs are cut down too, giving this record the vibe of an extended live set. I’m usually a guy…

Interesting mix of styles that should be absolutely mind blowing but unfortunately falls a bit flat due to the production / instrument mix. Expect conscious rhymes over a variety of dirging, droning, apocalyptic soundscapes. On paper, this is far ahead of its time, but just misses the mark, sadly.

Part a typical Hyperdub conscious electronic music masterpiece, partly a garage / hiphop work of art. Love the dichotomy between the two styles, which can often go hand in hand but seem to work as separate elements here rather than harmonizing together in unison. And that’s OK, honestly. Also, as an aside, and I think this is true of many Hyperdub releases in general, this works so much better when being listened to at 3am!

You can always rely on Foreign Beggars for bringing some of the best grime flows against a backdrop of dubstep-inspired beats. Two solid tracks back to back on this thing. Tidy.

This one should have stayed at the idea stage. Quite probably one of the silliest things I’ve ever heard. I’m sure many juggalos dig it but I have absolutely nothing positive to say about this collaboration from an objective musical review perspective so I’ll just leave it at that lmao

I remember when The Calm first came out. After the double barrel of both Wraith albums, and what seemed to be the wrapping up of the whole Joker Card saga, The Calm seemed directionless. It was for the same reason that I disliked Bizzar and Bizaar; ICP without the dark carnival mythos was just hollow for me. Granted, I’m not a teenager anymore so in my 30s I can return to this EP and enjoy…

Chill as fuck compilation of really, really cool dungeon synth tunes. This has turned me on to so many fucking cool as fuck DS artists, such as Lunar Cult, Gelure, Elminster (lol) and Villein. Can’t say I’ve ever played this game but the soundtrack is boss. Random Bandcamp find of the week!

Pointless, vapid bubblegum pop that sounds soulless and modern yet tired and outdated all at the same time. Mind you, this thing is so inoffensive it’s hard to justify getting riled up enough to give it a stinker of a review. The producers have made a fair enough effort in all fairness but Minogue sounds like she really can’t be arsed to even be here on her own album.

I’m not gonna lie to you, this shit is well outside of my wheelhouse. I only know Flowdan from his tracks with The Bug but damn his delivery is infectious, even though I’m not the biggest fan of grime (perhaps I’ve just not heard the right stuff). Either way, Serious Business is a solid 4 track EP and a great way to get into Flowdan’s solo stuff. “Ambush” and “Fuck About” are my favourite tracks…

Better than the old shit, with the production being the highlight of the record (not sure if all of it is by Devereaux (sp?) but it’s really good work). But yeah, Ouija Macc clearly isn’t for me and to be completely honest this record is an embodiment of absolutely everything that I hate about rap, so I’m in no position to really objectively review this. It’s awful in my eyes, that’s all I can really…

Checked out Ouijja Macc after the 3 Headed Monster albums with Violent J and Esham. It’s cool as fuck they brought him in and it did take me a while to warm to his voice but I really got into it by the time I was done with the first 3HM album. Unfortunately, I decided to start at the beginning and the title of this record says it all. I’m not just gonna sit here…

This sounds almost identical to the previous 3HM album, to the point where I’m not even sure if it was from the exact same studio session. Some proper Load and ReLoad ass shit going down here. Like its predecessor, Obliteration, Rampage is firing on all cylinders about 60% of the time, with the rest being pointless, repetitive filler. There’s a moment or two where Ouija Macc gets given the space to shine but for the…

Heard about this collab on some recent interviews with Violent J but with everything Psychopathic you gotta go in with tempered expectations because it could very easily be a complete bag of shit. Thankfully, the first 3HM record has more bangers than stinkers, but still boasts a cache of frankly pointless tunes to bloat out its runtime, which, honestly, doesn’t outstay its welcome for once. The concept is great, the production is fantastic, and (I…

I guess if you’re gonna listen to horrorcore you might as go for the sickest, most depraved shit you can find. That being said, this stuff is so far down the rabbit hole / iceberg chart that it may be a bit too much for some people. You can trust anything labelled with Suicide Rap Orgy, Butcher’s Harem or MC Bushpig to have the seal of absolute depravity and sickness. Honestly, this shit is absurd….

ABK often gets it in the neck for being a shining example of the shit that Psychopathic used to sign in the 00s. Personally, I think Boondox is infinitely shittier, but that’s another story for another time. It is true, some – if not most – of the tracks where ABK stands solo on this thing are just absolutely appalling. However there are collabs that prop up other tracks, and the backbone of ICP and…

Hell’s Pit is one of my favourite ICP releases (a rare album which doesn’t fall off into silliness) so I was stoked as all manner of fuck to hear these 9 tracks from those sessions that didn’t make the album. In some cases it’s obvious why the songs didn’t make the cut (and I’m glad all of these samples of twisted TV preachers didn’t make the record either, it gets a bit samey). There are…

I’ve never been the biggest fan of Kendrick Lamar but in the interest of returning to albums I last listened to a very long time ago, a review of Good Kid m.A.A.D. City was waaay overdue. I can commend the excellent writing and delivery, and the streaks of sampling that run in between the tracks offering a wider narrative that gives the whole experience much more depth. Production-wise, this shit is also on point, which…

Suffers the same fate as its brother/sister album, in that it cannot escape the mixed bag effect of “leftovers-from-Jeckel-Brothers-itis’. There are, as always, some high points, but when the peaks drop into the troughs, there are some serious low points for sure. Production is great, as the Esham cover / reworking of “Cherry Pie”, but I could really give or take this entire era of the band’s history.

Some really sick beats on display here, but it is debatable whether G Rap and Necro work together all that well. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not awful, but it doesn’t feel so much here like these two worked together, more than that someone took verses from both of them and slapped them both into the same songs. On the surface it works pretty well but if you wanna go deeper then you can’t.

Even as a huge ICP fan in the 2000s I always overlooked Bizzar and Bizaar. For one, the covers looked awful, and they sat outside of the joker’s card series, so I didn’t really see the point in them. They kinda flew under the radar. People hyped the Jeckel Brothers. People hyped the Wraith albums. Nobody gave a shit about these “bizarre” albums, at least not in my experience. I don’t know if I’m carrying…

Over the course of albums from Boomin’ all the way to Mail Dominance you can trace a slow but deliberate change in Esham’s music. Each album along the way is another iteration of what could be considered a classic Esham sound, but each era had its own distinct vibe and production. Tongues is a mixed bag in comparison, both in terms of quality as well as regards to production and musical structure. Not only do…

I’ve listened to this countless times since it dropped last summer all with the mind of writing about it here but as enjoyable as it is, I’ve had no real inspiriation to come and talk about it. One has to ask why that is the case. There is nothing particularily wrong with the songs on this EP, in fact they are actually rather pleasant and whilst I don’t feel they really push the envelope in…

Damn, this shit is all over the place! A blistering mix of blasting grindcore carnage and barrages of industrial noise, all chopped and changed up into glitchy, headache-inducing soundscapes. I guess think of breakcore techniques but applied to a slightly different musical landscape. (Recommended by kay192x, thank you!)

Excellent songwriting from one of the stronger names in the current British underground. Perhaps Spectral Intercession does not live up entirely to the sheer excellence of Septic Funeral but this is still a solid follow-up and a solid debut to boot. The HM2 buzzsaw sound in 2023 is no doubt polarising and is indeed a bold choice, because Coffin Mulch are NOT just another one of those derivative copycat bands. The songwriting is nuanced and…

(It’s worth mentioning the OST originally came out with the game it featured in back in 1998, but wasn’t realised as a stand-alone OST until 2001) Easily one of the best game OSTs of all time, but there is always the risk that I am heavily biased, having played this game to death when I was 9 to 10 years old. I had no idea what I was doing, but I loved it. Hoenig’s soundtrack…

I learnt recently that the composer for the Baldurs Gate 1 & 2 soundtracks was a member of Tangerine Dream and also released solo albums such as this. Hence then, the inevitable “working backwards” excercise in which I have now had the pleasure of hearing this lovely, well-made synthesizer record. Utilising, perhaps obviously, the spacey ambience of the Berlin School style, Hoenig presents to us a series of compositions that excellent detail other astral worlds…

Death In June clone this may be, but it has its moments of genius and songwriting flair. I commend these moments of brilliance, but they are often mixed in with other less inspired passages and some just downright terrible arrangements. A mixed bag, but when it’s good, it scratches that neofolk itch perfectly.

Great traditional single release of smoky, dark folk music, with Side A being by far the strongest. Dude and Wolfe play off each other brilliantly and really make for a captivating duo.

What a U-turn…. LOL Whilst not as “weak” as Turbo, Ram It Down doubles down on the 80s-to-the-max vibes of stadium bands of that time period. BUT – and its a big but – the electronics here have a much more industrial element to them, at least that’s how it seems to me. There’s a coldness to them, a harshness and a heaviness. So instead I find myself welcoming these strange electronic / rhythmic elements…

As enjoyable as Twilight Of The Gods is, there is something about that pales in comparison to some of the earlier records in a similar style. It is difficult to put my finger on it, purely because there is nothing “wrong” per se with anything that I am hearing. There is also the fact that TOTG was the first “viking” Bathory album I heard (before I decided to address them chronologically, which was a much…

Archival, looping ambient drones from multi-faceted electronic genius Mortiis. The Shadow Of The Tower is purely for the die-hard collector, however. There is nothing really of merit here for the new listener, unless you are stumbling into this Mortiis release blind from the drone / ambient world, then by all means tuck in. The Shadow Of The Tower is one single 30+ minute piece of repetitive droning atmosphere. It does not invoke a sense of…

Underwhelming.com flash sale! Mesmeric Enabling Device sounds like lazy noise I used to make in my early 20s when I figured out how the paulstretch tool worked. Considering the names involved, this is heavily disappointing.

What an unusual and endearing sound. First impressions come across like a mixture of Oi! and the post-punk recipe perfected by groups such as Joy Division. An interesting mix for sure. Comparisons to acts like Black Magick SS would not be incorrect to make (particularily in regards the ethereal wails found in opening track “Sailing To Other Lands”), but there is a more of an earthy, grounded feel to the songwriting from Longbow (and overall…

I take no pleasure in declaring that this has to be one of the worst things that I have ever heard. Musically I suppose it’s quite strong, but generally the songwriting is appalling and both vocal performances here make me cringe so hard I feel like I’m going to have a stroke. When I say things like “folk rock band based in Elder Scrolls lore” or “it sounds like The Handsome Family for fans of…

I took a chance on this after falling in love with the cover art. My previous experience with Ponty goes no further than the Aurora album, something which I found to be a touch underwhelming, in all honesty. Hopes were not high for Mystical Adventures, then. I am pleased to report however, that the record blew all previous conceptions that I may have held well and truly out of the water. Mystical Adventures does not…