Infiltrate.Rebuild.Destroy
CKY
(Island/Def Jam)
They are the ambassadors of anguish, the avatars of angst. And with Infiltrate.Destroy.Rebuild, their first album of new music since signing with Island/Def Jam Records, CKY proves that one can indeed turn anger into art.
The album kicks into gear from the first lick and maintains its intensity to the last defiant riff. Songs like “Inhuman Creation Station” throb with rebellion against society’s shackles. With disjointed lyrics sketching out a mocking theme (“Work with the team to meet the deadline!!! / A modern man cannot survive / Drowning in formaldehyde”), the song pounds with individualistic energy.
The best track on the album is “Attached At The Hip”, which vividly evokes an atmosphere of suffocation and oppression. The lyrics are a haunting reflection on attachment and dependency beautifully delivered by way of hard rock metal.
The title of the album is apt, as CKY has made no secret of its disdain for the trendy pop confections on the airwaves. Yet they seem intent on affecting their revolution from within the system. Their videos have played on TRL, and much of their fame has come by way of association with the MTV show “Jackass.” The music on Infiltrate is far more radio-friendly than previous albums, which included lyrics like “I caught my daughter giving head to my brother.” The emotions are more coded on this album, though their integrity remains undiminished. “Flesh Into Gear,” the first single, shows the refinement that time and the backing of a major studio have brought to CKY. While the darkness one expects is present, a poppy feel pervades the track. The ballad “Close Yet Far” is another departure for the fiercely independent band. For once, they forgo the vitriol and embrace a lighter sound and feel.
Subversive and strong, Infiltrate unleashes a diary of torment and frustration upon the world. Be warned, excessive exposure to the contents on the disc may dampen one’s mood.
Deadringer
RJD2
(Definitive Jux)
All hail Def Jux, saviors of American hip hop. Not only have they produced a brace of rappers outrageously talented enough to redeem a near-moribund genre—in RJD2, they have proved that they don’t even need a rapper to do it. The beats and cuts on RJD2’s debut solo album, Deadringer, are as fresh as they come, neither burdened with artistic pretension nor simply catering to the dance floor.
His eye for samples is deadly, picking up a glowing slow blues take on “Hoochie Coochie Man” for the stomping single “Good Times Roll Pt. 2.” There are some goofy, B-movie interludes, but nothing stands in the way of RJD2’s party for long. It’s difficult to find parallels for a scratcher who can hold his own so simply and easily, but perhaps his closest peer is sample-savante DJ Shadow. Shadow’s influence may be seen in the album opener “The Horror” and “Smoke and Mirrors.” Both boast uneasy guitar squalls and minor themes that emerge sounding as though a blues band had undertaken the soundtrack to a horror movie.
RJD2 does share his space with a couple of very carefully selected MCs: Jakki has a very capable, if not entirely unpredictable battle-rhyme on “F. H. H.” (discreet for “Fuck Hip Hop,” surprisingly). But it is on “June” with MC Copywrite that RJD2 demonstrates that not only can he back a dextrous rapper, he can steal the show back again. The dense, shifting atmospherics range from mournful guitar noodlings to the everpresent bass/high-hat tussle that comes forcefully to the fore on “The Chicken-Bone Circuit.”
RJD2 may be following in some illustrious footsteps as a DJ-auteur, but seldom will you hear an album that as adeptly does what only a DJ can do: seamlessly meld disparate styles and epochs into a whole that is far more than the sum of its parts.
