First studio album of Lordz of
Brooklyn aka LOB aka The Lordz, crossover hip-hop / rock group composed
of mostly Irish American and Italian American descent from Bay Ridge and
Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. The original line-up consisted of brothers Adam
"Ad Money" & Michael "MC Kaves" McLeer, Scotty Edge, Dino "Dino
Bottz" Cerillo, and Paulie "Paulie 2Times" Nugent. They evolved from an
earlier rap / graffiti crew called Verrazano Boyz and their passion for
art stands out both on the cover and in the content of their songs.
Formed in 1992, the group signs with American Recordings, the label of
Rick Rubin, and Ventrue Entertainment, publishing the LP in 1995.
Composed of a dozen songs and just over three quarters of an hour of length, the album features Rammellzee as the only accredited guest, in the fresh and lively "Tales From the Rails". The production is managed almost entirely by Ad Money, some rhythms are also produced and co-produced by his brother Mike McLeer, Adam Gazzola and DJ Nastee, also there's some live instrumentation, in particular the guitar makes its way in half the album, being a product mainly focused on rockin' sounds. The guys deliver bravado with a hardcore, aggressive, sometimes regular, sometimes a little ragga style, creating a pretty solid and coherent project. The rapping style has some similarities with that of their friends of House of Pain, with whom the boys toured. Also, if you pay attention, you can see how the production of "Pull Your Card" is an attempt to beat à la DJ Muggs in "Jump Around", using a tight and squeaky loop.
None of the guys stand out for the quality of the content or rapping nor do they particularly impress, they sound all pretty similar to each other's. The album didn't sell many copies and the group exited Rubin's label, returning to release material in the studio eight years after this release. During this period, they recorded tracks for the soundtrack of the independent movie "Gravesend" (1996): among others, the title track, "Gravesend (Lake of Fire)" stands out. When you think you have never heard these guys and that you'll never listen to them, you may find that this track is the end credits song of "Mafia", one of the best video games of the year.
Looking on the internet, this record is tagged under the genres gangsta rap and mafia rap, and also under conscious rap: it didn't seem to me that the disk fell into one of these three genres of hip-hop, so, I went to reread the lyrics and I'm sorry to say that tags are all wrong. In the course of listening, the boys continue to brag, claiming to spend the evenings drinking and smoking weed, representing the neighborhood, making quite rambling claims against church, school and police, other fairly common materialistic and vicious, some violent flexes, and claiming to stay away from the crack trade — apparently more for lack of opportunity than for their own choice. This is pretty much the same kind of thing anyone I met in my neighborhood would say and do if I went out right now. There are only a few, random and distant references to mafia figures, there's a veiled reference to the most famous mob movie ever, a couple more mafia films and a couple of bosses and gangsters are named, but this is part of the art of name-dropping and isn't enough to make these twelve tracks gangster or mafioso material.
Highlights: "Saturday Night Fever", "White Trash", "Tales From the Rails", "Unda the Boardwalk", "L.O.B. Sound".
Rating: 7/10.
Composed of a dozen songs and just over three quarters of an hour of length, the album features Rammellzee as the only accredited guest, in the fresh and lively "Tales From the Rails". The production is managed almost entirely by Ad Money, some rhythms are also produced and co-produced by his brother Mike McLeer, Adam Gazzola and DJ Nastee, also there's some live instrumentation, in particular the guitar makes its way in half the album, being a product mainly focused on rockin' sounds. The guys deliver bravado with a hardcore, aggressive, sometimes regular, sometimes a little ragga style, creating a pretty solid and coherent project. The rapping style has some similarities with that of their friends of House of Pain, with whom the boys toured. Also, if you pay attention, you can see how the production of "Pull Your Card" is an attempt to beat à la DJ Muggs in "Jump Around", using a tight and squeaky loop.
None of the guys stand out for the quality of the content or rapping nor do they particularly impress, they sound all pretty similar to each other's. The album didn't sell many copies and the group exited Rubin's label, returning to release material in the studio eight years after this release. During this period, they recorded tracks for the soundtrack of the independent movie "Gravesend" (1996): among others, the title track, "Gravesend (Lake of Fire)" stands out. When you think you have never heard these guys and that you'll never listen to them, you may find that this track is the end credits song of "Mafia", one of the best video games of the year.
Looking on the internet, this record is tagged under the genres gangsta rap and mafia rap, and also under conscious rap: it didn't seem to me that the disk fell into one of these three genres of hip-hop, so, I went to reread the lyrics and I'm sorry to say that tags are all wrong. In the course of listening, the boys continue to brag, claiming to spend the evenings drinking and smoking weed, representing the neighborhood, making quite rambling claims against church, school and police, other fairly common materialistic and vicious, some violent flexes, and claiming to stay away from the crack trade — apparently more for lack of opportunity than for their own choice. This is pretty much the same kind of thing anyone I met in my neighborhood would say and do if I went out right now. There are only a few, random and distant references to mafia figures, there's a veiled reference to the most famous mob movie ever, a couple more mafia films and a couple of bosses and gangsters are named, but this is part of the art of name-dropping and isn't enough to make these twelve tracks gangster or mafioso material.
Highlights: "Saturday Night Fever", "White Trash", "Tales From the Rails", "Unda the Boardwalk", "L.O.B. Sound".
Rating: 7/10.
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