Second album for Teren Jones, better known as Del the Funky Homosapien. Two years after his debut, Jones distances himself from the Lench Mob and the Boogiemen with whom he had collaborated until then and starts working with his personal team, the Hieroglyphics, an Oakland collective founded by Jones himself: as part of this crew, A-Plus, Casual, Snupe, Domino and Jay-Biz do most of the production, A-Plus, Jay-Biz and DJ Toure do some scratches and the rest of the rhythms are provided by Del himself and SD50's, production team not related to the rapper.
The overall sound of the project is coherent and almost the same for almost all the songs: boom bap funky-jazzy simple and minimal, with slow and pounding syncopated drum machine, funky and soul samples, and dark vibes. The rhythms are good, close to the East Coast sound, but they aren't excellent. Lyrically, Del makes a simple effort: he definitely moves away from the gangsta scene, of which he has never really taken part, and moves away from the gangsta collaborators with whom he made the previous record, deciding to come up with an album of almost an hour composed exclusively of battle rap, braggadocio and cuts against "wack MCs".
His delivery style is slow, smooth and tight, excellent, he boasts fantastic flow and hardcore style: despite a good rapping, there are no classic songs or highlights, fourteen discreet cuts come out practically the same and the record soon ends up being monotonous, tiring and exhausting. "You're in Shambles", the opening song, deludes the listener with a great rhythm, a good hook and several excellent samples, including a dark piano and a sax, Del delivers very well along with his alter-ego Unicron, but from then on the record everything is the same.
Distributed by Elektra, a subsidiary of Warner, Del's sophomore struggles to climb the charts, finishing far from the top: the first place among the Heatseekers Albums isn't enough to make him renew the contract with the label.
Rating: 7.2/10.
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