DOOM - Born Like This

STAMFORD, CT --
Spring is in the air and I miss the city of Madison, Wisconsin. The oft-jogging housewives of Fairfield County are nice, and yet I find myself indifferent. Give me Bucky shorts any day. Maybe it's nostalgia based on that idyllic college lifestyle. Perhaps it's a rosy memory born of a young mind erstwhile altered. For whatever reason, Madison wins. Always.

And now to bidness. Our issue this Sunday is a brief review of a brief album, DOOM's Born Like This. You should download this album. You may even choose to purchase it, if you happen to be a wealthy moralist. If that's all you wanted to know, you can stop reading now.

Still there? Fuck. I wanted to stop writing and "evaluate" a newly completed torrent. This album is nothing new from DOOM. If you've listened to his past work, under any number of aliases, you'll recognize both rhyme scheme and subject matter. You may not find anything profound here. This does not matter. This is crazy stream-of-consciousness shit. It's entertaining and bizarre. Unique? Yeah, if you compare it to just about any other artist. That's all I ever really wanted. If you're bored with the drug addled antics of our anti-hero, Ghostface, Raekwon, and Slug make appearances. Kudos go the first person to locate the track where Doom tries to sound like Biz Markie.

The production is lush and layered. I find the sample in Lightworks to be incredibly annoying, but it's in my head now like McDonalds Filet O' Fish. If you want the 3 hottest beats you'll find them on Gazzillion Ear (thank God for J Dilla), More Rhymin', and That's That. While I can't describe the dopeness of the first, the latter two are sweetly balanced productions based on classical instruments.

When all is said and done, this is a solid album. The rhymes are either inspired, random, or incomprehensible. Repeated listens are the only way to determine which is which. So it goes.

NEXT SUNDAY: Podcastable radio immortality. Music related? Not for the most part. Daily audio staple? You be the judge.