Sophomore record for the Canadian hip-hop group from Toronto Dream Warriors, formed by Louie "King Lou" Robinson, Frank "Capital Q" Allert, Phillip "DJ Luv" Gayle and Hussein "Spek" Yoosuf. The boys return to release an LP three years after the debut. Guru of Gang Starr and Butterfly of Digable Planets are the only guests of the edition, while the production is mainly carried out by the group itself, together with Gang Starr, DJ Premier, 99, Black Katt, Butterfly, Da Grassroots Music and Billy Bryans.
The disc is published by Pendulum, which at the time EMI had stolen from Elektra (WEA) as a subsidiary, and sells a small number of physical copies, albeit discreetly received by the insiders. The record is better in the intentions of the boys than in its execution: the effort is clearly inspired by the best acts of US alternative rap, breathing Native Tongues vibes. The group creates accessible and decent music, but not original, which supports bars and texts purely functional to the rhythms themselves: boom baps with hard, pounding, slow and tight drums, solid jazzy samples scattered around, plus some random scratches on the chorus.
DJ Premier makes both the fifth and eighth tracks, they're both better than average beats, but you wouldn't say they're Premier without seeing the tracklist. Guru performs effortlessly in his cut and Butterfly creates a carpet inspired by his Digable Planets, delivering worthily on a poor drum. In the second part of the tape, the drum is depleted and scales to midtempo. At 17 tunes (5 skits) and 52 minutes of listening, it's too long and monotonous: the guys sound on par with some of the worst Native Tongues acts, but they're not that scarce. They get by, more or less, with a better production it would be a decent record, but there's just no inspiration here. Not essential, 5/10.
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