Czarface has always spoken directly to a specific audience, one that values familiarity over progression. You can’t knock Czarface Meets Metal Face too much for sounding like a period piece, since that’s so clearly the intention. And Esoteric, at his best, sounds like a JAY-Z impersonator ( Blueprint era, of course) it certainly doesn’t help that he regularly drops lines like “My interest, fly Benzes.” On “Don’t Spoil It,” Deck stuffs his bars with references to classic rap albums, but the song feels more pandering than clever. But none of its verses are particularly notable: DOOM is mealy-mouthed, Esoteric leans more on references than ability, and Deck’s verse, while dynamic, feels simplistic (“I stay woke like seven cups of coffee”). “Forever People” is clearly meant to be a mic-skills showcase, the dialed-back beat consisting of little more than palm-muted guitar and a looped drum break. Unfortunately, the rest of the record can’t meet the bar set by these highlights. In another era, this is precisely the caliber of storytelling and wit we might have expected from DOOM. His verse spins a pun-filled yarn about a supernatural houseguest who chastises Mike for not buying into BitCoin, drives a Rolls-Royce Phantom and plays the exquisite corpse parlor game obsessively. The real star here, though, is Open Mike Eagle, who barely breaks a sweat rapping circles around his hosts.
DOOM kicks things off with a competent but forgettable verse, Deck spits furiously, landing a few satisfying lines (“Stared death in the face, left him with a sore neck”) and even Esoteric, the weakest rapper of the bunch, shows up with a surplus of energy. The Czar-Keys beat here is surprisingly modern, building a groove out of bubbly 8-bit chirps that collapse halfway through the track, revealing a chasm of groaning synths below. “Phantoms,” the record’s highlight, is even more successful overall. Here DOOM delivers his most sprightly verse on the album over a grimy bassline, even offering a few flashes of his once razor-sharp lyricism (“No friendly warfare, this ain’t wrestling/There’s nothing staged over here, you’re trippin’, mescaline”). Lead single “Nautical Depth” provides the best example. It’s as if he’s been searching for his perfect foil, that opponent who can draw out his inner supervillain.Ĭzarface is not quite that ideal nemesis, though on a few tracks, the group does manage to coax more energy out of DOOM than we’ve heard in a few years. If nothing else, he’s been a prolific collaborator, working with kindred spirits like Ghostface, Flying Lotus, Earl Sweatshirt, Cannibal Ox, Busta Rhymes, and the Avalanches. But he’s remained active, regularly surfacing for guest verses, remixes, and production gigs, even while marquee projects like Madvillainy 2 and DOOMSTARKS remain eternally on the back burner. With the exception of his undated Missing Notebook Rhymes verses, he’s sounded increasingly lethargic and dull on the mic, even slurring his speech at times. DOOM was forced to decamp to London after being denied entry to the United States (a country he had lived in nearly all of his life) and announced last year that his teenage son had died. Following a one-off track with Czarface (2015’s “ Ka-Bang!”), DOOM now returns for a full-length collaboration with the group.Īs you may know, the last decade hasn’t been kind to the man behind the mask. He’s the last man standing from New York’s “Golden Era,” an emcee whose once-peerless wordplay was the very embodiment of the synergy of hip-hop and comic-book culture.
And none is more qualified for the job than MF DOOM (the “MF” is apparently back, DOOM’s near pathological aversion to having his records filed next to each other notwithstanding). But as Czarface likes to remind us, Every Hero Needs a Villain.
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