Esoteric can’t help but be outmatched here, but still brings an energy that’s both admirable and genuinely fun, like on “Stun Gun” when he quips “ I run through rappers like Chipotle/ I hope they get their shit together/ ‘Cause the raps they give are somethin’ like a laxative, whatever.” Inspectah Deck is a legend in his own right, and turns in some of the best verses on the album. Fitting, then.īut it would be unfair to focus solely on DOOM, even as his collaborators so clearly fashion the record around his presence. It’s comic-book gothic – that is to say, it sounds like the soundtrack of Castle Doom, Doctor Doom’s lair. There are plenty of minor key motifs – one of the best is on “Astral Traveling” – interspersed with skits and snatches of sampled dialogue. The synths on “MF Czar” could play over any of the imitations of the video game DOOM, or over the real thing itself. The woozy harmonium-like sound on “Captain Brunch” places a layer of drone beneath one of the brighter sounding tracks. “Forever People” has a creeping bass line that evoked nothing so much as a classic episode of Scooby-Doo, while the piano on “Badness of Madness” sounds like its reverberating through the vastness of some subterranean dungeon. Handled by 7L along with Jeremy Page & Todd Spadafore, the sound is boom-bap draped with the melodrama of a haunted house. You could call it an earned indulgence, but that would be underselling the album’s pleasures.
Instead, it’s a group reveling in their love of comic books and old school rap. This isn’t a revolutionary album, but DOOM made his fair share of those. The band of veterans trade bars over beats without any concern higher than talking shit while doing what they love. His heroic foil here is Czarface, and unlike on DOOM’s previous effort, this is a partnership of equals. He’s the bad guy showing up to monologue, to boast – like any supervillain his schemes don’t always come to fruition. “ Wack rappers get spit on through the pearly gates/ Final straw, ask ‘em what they rhymin’ for/ Death waits right behind the door like a dinosaur.” This is DOOM in full villain mode – “ The Supervillain, a maniacal tyrant,” he raps on the first proper track of Czarface Meets Metal Face, “Meddle with Metal.” Even as he’s sharing the spotlight with the super group of Inspectah Deck, 7L and Esoteric, every DOOM verse feels like an event.
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