We start with Mac telling a story from the roof of a factory on “Backward”, a modern Lethal-in-Wonderland adventure depicting a man whose life was destroyed and rebuilt. From disclaimers to holding his dying mother, Mac starts a little slow and then bursts into deep unchallenging lyrical aggression over a mystic beat that should be on the Fable 2 video game. On “Calm Down Baby”, our Grandmothers are threatened if we clown his hick accent, and we’re told his music taste is better than ours. His first taste of heartbreak is told from a middle school perspective and it’s hard to believe this guy is 25 years old.

“Rotten Apple Pie” tells more school stories of purple trapper keepers and Mac getting pregnant with Ava Gardner’s children. His rhyme style is heavily influenced by Slug, equipped with fantasy references and Mac’s own computer love twang. DJ Sku lays not quite four bars of mediocre cuts at the end. “Make Out Bandit” is an adolescent song about making out with women and never talking to them again. The chorus and Mac’s Nate Dogg impression are no more than dull. Skipping to “Pound That Beer”, the song comes off as an energetic beer chant that is really hard to sit through as well. His double-time flow is off and it would probably be more entertaining to watch this song live than hear it in the car.

“Jihad” is another anti-religion, pro-alcoholism slap to corporate America’s face with Snuffleupagus and Darwin references, while hailing George Carlin. Don’t ask. “I’ll go back to church when the Chiefs win the Super bowl,” he proclaims. Next, the song
“Crazy” has a “Soulja Boy Tellem” meets The Three Amigos style beat. If you can get over the simple chorus concept, you might enjoy the multi-syllabic rhymes about Carlos Mencia and being a Kansas City piece of Euro-Trash. Eminem would be proud of his mentee.

You don’t need a song titled, “Know It All” to realize Mac thinks that way. The production has another video game vibe with drums that sound like they were sponsored by Tinker Toys. His flow is a complete Slug bite. While the content is in-depth, the style is noticeably bitten, which is the cardinal sin. “Sledgehammer” is a solid song with a fierce rhyme pattern over an almost reggaeton track. Thicker drums enhance the listening pleasure on this one. Bravo!

“Die Slow” has a brilliant acoustic guitar sample and tribal beat. The harmonica was a great touch. Mac cries, “I swear to God there’s something trying to steal my sound” in the chorus, while trying to explain how he’s a rapper that doesn’t like rap and introduce us to the disease that grows under his skin. “Lithium Lips” is an enjoyable love story over an “I Dream of Genie” on heroin type beat. “Girls learn sexiness, women teach class.” By this point, it’s safe to say that Slug wants his style back. “Tell Me Goodbye” is a shot at political and revolutionary rappers. Nestled safe in his upper-class Overland Park, Kansas City home, Mac never had a struggle to fight for, so he’s unable to fathom the reasons for resistance. “Sun Storm” touches on homosexual marriage, alcoholism, rainstorms, and beautiful things in his grasp. The beat is Dove Shack influenced.

The bonus track, 11 Out of 10 is one of the best songs on the album. Mac snaps on a level that would make Chino XL extend his hand. The beat pounds hard with the rhythm of Elizabeth Taylor’s heart. There are definitely corny parts to this album, but Mac’s creative wordplay draws you back to the songs and beats you enjoy most. As a whole, the album is inbetween tolerable and enjoyable. – Aaron James White

We begin with the club standard Swizz Beatz produced, “Set it Off” where N.O.R.E. boasts about being from New York with his gun off safety, respected in the projects, with a filled out “O.G. card in the process”. “Thug Club music that you listen to late/That’s the style I helped create”. With an annoying “set it off” vocal sample riding this club anthem, the track is complimented with J-Russ making Burger King references. “That Club Shit” follows with a Neptunish, strip club feel. Three Six Mafia handle the chorus only as N.O.R.E. takes two verses to mention the guns and Patron he already talked about in the first song.

The single, “Throw Em Under the Bus” begins with diarrhea grunts. As our evening at the nightclub drags on, Jadakiss paints a Pulp Fiction scene while Kurupt spits only a slightly better verse than he did on the “Inner G” single on Killa Priest’s new album, The Offering. “Cocaine Cowboys” is a little cliché, but the Manuel Noriega documentary audio samples throughout the 80′s sounding Scarface beat are fantastic. “Green Light” is another club song with an Eminem production influence, but the sole concept is to remind us that “green light means go”. Capone tells us how fly he is these days and what he likes to drink, as Final Chapter raises his drink a little higher. “I don’t care what you say, John Legend looks gay,” proclaims NORE.

Deacon teams up with N.O.R.E. on “Pop a Pill”, a strip club joint where they discuss having sex with women on ecstasy. “Sour Diesel” is a weed anthem where Styles P talks about watching Animal Planet. The hook is as boring and unoriginal as the song concept. N.O.R.E. then reminds us he’s “joking but halfway serious” about “Paternity Test”, a song where he asks Shorty to give him a paternity test. It must be hard for him to trust promiscuous women these days with his modest and humble lifestyle. The beat is tired and the chorus is just silly.

“Ima Get You” is a climatic anthem that has a lot of energy featuring GLC and Kanye West allegedly. GLC and Kanye sing the chorus only, both telling us they’re, “everything you wish you was” and jacking the G-Unit jingle when they say “get you”.
“Eat Pussy” is the most socially alarming song from Victor Santiago, as along with Tru Life and Peedi Peedi, they help embarass women worldwide. In “The Rap Game” N.O.R.E. gives a glimpse into his past record deals and experiences. “I was glamorous/ flew back from Los Angeles/ had to do the radio with Clue, met Fabolous/back then Trackmasters had an artist named 50 Cent/ did a song with him and they ain’t give me 50 Cent”. You don’t say?

The Alchemist produced, “Drink Champ” touches down on his confidence in drinking anyone under the table, explaining his strike-out game to drinking with the Pope. The final joint, “Shoes” is another stripper theme song that would make Sara Jessica Parker melt. A high paced club banger with KC on the hook, along with the rest of the album themes may help N.O.R.E. soar past label mates in units sold, but this release may further alienate Babygrande from it’s core audience, in terms or preserving the founding Rawkus-influenced artistic integrity it originally launched with. You decide. – Aaron James White

The album is opened with, “Creepy Crawl”, a night stalking adventure that Richard Ramirez would be proud of. With a story that rivals the Sharon Tate murders, Necro is the modern Tex Watson as he creeps into your house to do Satan’s business. As the Charles Manson interview sample shuffles you away from that two minute sadistic crime scene, you stumble right into “No Remorse”. The chorus does just as it says; punches you dead in the face. There’s a monestary chant in the background underlaying Necro’s crisp, brutal delivery of militant lyrics that reflect times of war, and him of course killing you again. A great Ipod jam for those late night jogs through the park, ladies.

There are definitely album hang-ups like, “Revenge”, a slow and boring piano sample accented with random and, at points, double-time drums that play behind the laziest chorus Necro has probably recorded to date. Harley Flanagan of the Cro-Mags is featured on “Belligerent Gangsters” as much as Chuck D is featured on that one Immortal Techique song. When Necro’s not “squeezing muskets like Ceasar Augustus”, the creepy strings take the track’s spotlight. “Suffocated to Death” by God’s Shadow is the most complicated song on the album. Mike Smith, the drummer from the death metal band Suffocation, joins forces with Lamb of God guitarist, Mark Morton and legendary bass guitarist, Steve DiGiorgio of Testament and Death Autopsy fame. Lead vocalist, Brian Fair of Shadows Fall manhandles the microphone like a speeding buick slamming into a fruit wagon. Necro plays with a few rhyme styles including double-time. Fellas, pick those weights up!

Necro never fails in expressing the highs and lows of his his death rap persona. On “Mutilate the Beat Necro” shows us his sense of humor with laugh-out-loud cracks on Aaron Neville and admitting he has “more fucked up lines than you could possibly count”. These writings arn’t Hemmingway, but that’s what makes Necro fun, at times like this. That two minute snapper leads us into, “Keep on Driving”, a personal favorite song on Death Rap. His “untimate focus is who won’t live”, with an exciting chorus encouraging you to keep on driving. Necro plays that person waiting down the road. A clash of mutilations happening from every angle. A goulish creature when the full moon hits, he is fresh out of the sanitarium and off crazy train and slaughters his way to a farm road on a trespass with Willie Nelson playing in the background. “Warriors, the serial killer version”. Necro’s vocal samples cut over the space station beat on “Technition of Execution” sound more cdj-generated than those on Gza’s, “Fame” 12″. His futuristic lyrics are presise and exact, though the cadence is masked by punch-in after punch-in.

The self proclaimed, King Crimson brings in Adam Jackson on “Keeping it Real”, his most personal song on Death Rap. On this song he fuses metal and hip hop seamlesly, which hasn’t always been the case with Necro. Mr. Hyde pays a visit on “Exploitation”, where he shows us that he’s came a long way since Barn of the Naked Dead. The choppy piano, western saloon sounding track that Necro cooked up is amazing. Think Primo circa 97′. A shame the song is less than a minute and a half. “As Deadly as Can Be” is as close as you’re going to get to a Blood Brothers album in 2007. Ill Bill and Necro are control motivators who always write the chronicles of Hell. Scott Ian, the legendary guitarist of Anthrax, Fates Warning vocalist, Ray Adler and bass guitarist, Dave Ellefson, of Megadeth and Ministry fame alongside with Necro show us all that Evil Rules. Still. This Death Rap banger is another example of Necro getting bigger than Satan. It seems like the melodic, “Forensic Pathology” was just meant to be. Necro details scientific anatomy modifications from a dim lit jazz bar. “Dead Body Disposal 2007″, the one minute version.

This album is a portrait of a death rapper. No more, no less. Like all of Necro’s albums, there’s never a shortage of gore, sex, and celebrity references that leave us all entertained. The upside of the album being shorter is it’s easier to listen to it in it’s entirety. The artistic downside is another Necro album with one core concept. Necro has proved he can rap on many levels with vast array of artists from many genres keeping his content geared towards the album theme only. That’s why he is still in the game making money hand over fist, with a Master P-like business perspective. Thousands of indie rappers compete every day trying to find a market that buys into the words they convey. Necro sits in his own throne and controls the Death Rap genre, where very few challenge and only an elite few gather. – Aaron James White