Once I was baking a giant cake when the mixing bowl fell off the counter and covered me in a tide of mix. Screaming, a thick morass of goo seemed to seep into every orifice I had to offer, choking me in a thick sweet gloop, drowning me in a never ending flow of oppressive weight.
That experience was brought back to me listening to Body Count‘s
Murder 4 Hire. Fresh from playing a copper on television, Ice T’s back playing heavy metal even though most of Body Count are all dead.
There’s nothing really wrong with the material of
Murder 4 Hire, one can’t moan about Body Count sounding like a rap metal band because that’s what they are. Rather it’s the execution of the material that lays this record flat like a straight right from Sonny Liston.
Listening to this record is like wading through a bog as the production is horrible, the guitar riffs are fuzzy and lumpen whilst the drums thump and twack. I presume there’s a bass somewhere but I couldn’t make it out.
Every single track drags its feet, which isn’t good for Ice T. For a man pushing fifty you think he would come up with better lyrical content than “uh war is bad mm..kay”. I know he can do better, I’ve heard him do it.
Apart from the mildly amusing South baiting
Down In the Bayou this is just a big bag of empty bravado and ugly amateur noise.
Without the amphetamine rush that the best rap metal has to offer this turkey failed at the coop.
Out now on Escapi Records.
http://www.icet.com/
