Debut album for the Boogie Monsters, hip-hop group from Ettrick, Virginia, composed of New York rappers Mondo McCann and Sean "Vex Da Vortex" Pollard (born in Fairbanks, Alaska), and by the brothers Sean "Myntric" and Ivor "Yodared" Myers, of Jamaican descent. The group produces a track and the rest of the record is musically entrusted to Derek "D!" Jackson, aided by a couple of live instrumentalists: Clinton Sands on bass, Darren Lighty and Scott Storch on keyboards, and Mike Tyler on guitar and bass.
Lyrically, the record is often labeled as Christian hip-hop, but it's a misleading definition: there's some religious, devil and bible hint, however, it's hard to see this LP fully in that sub-genre and that's why it works so well. The songs are interpreted with a slow, regular and flowing delivery style, and come closest to abstract rap and positive rap, inspired by Native Tongues and major acts of alternative hip-hop. From a musical point of view, Derek Jackson does a nice job and creates a simple and accessible jazzy soundscape, with light, glossy and elegant samples, a midtempo drum that touches perfection and good boom bap rhythms even in their most lacerating and cheap traits, with several appreciable variations such as dark demonic bells appropriate for "Mark of the Beast", a very slow beat and dilated rapping in the horrorcore filler "Old Man Jacob's Well", and g-funk synths in "Bronx Bombas".
Released by EMI via Pendulum, the album positively surprises, even if it's ignored by critics and soon forgotten by the public in a year that has seen a frightening and unreal abundance of classic records: despite everything, it manages to make it into the top 50 albums in the rap chart. Consisting of 13 songs and almost an hour of listening, closed by a remix, the album is fresh and solid, with pleasant production and competent rapping, functional to the same rhythms most of the time: it doesn't present obvious strong songs nor weak cuts, it's recommended for fans of positive and jazz rap.
Highlights: "Recognized Thresholds of Negative Stress", "Mark of the Beast", "Honeydips in Gotham", "Strange", "Old Man Jacob's Well".
Rating: 7.5/10.
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