At the age of 12, when Necro was not dealing pot, he and his brother,
Ill Bill played in a death metal band. They later discovered hip hop and the rest is history.
This record is the first to employ a fusion of Necro's invention called "death rap", live death metal instrumentation with rapped vocals. This is not the primary focus of this album, however, as it's primarily hip hop in its sound. When Necro does fuse the two genres, he usually plays most of the instruments himself, but quite a few heavy metal musicians turn up as guests. In fact, the majority of the guests are metal musicians, not rappers:
Voivod drummer Away,
Hatebreed vocalist Jamey Jasta, multiple members of
Obituary, Dan Lilker of
Stormtroopers of Death and Sid Wilson of
Slipknot.
As you might have gathered, Necro is not the easiest musician to listen to. His lyrics discuss many things ranging from cannibalism and necrophilia to brutal murder, scattered with references to Satanism or Charles Manson (whose voice is sampled on several album skits here and on other Necro albums), and even allusions to the idea of starting a religious cult; the sex-themed raps on this album also tend to be pretty offensive: they're graphically descriptive and borderline sexist. If you're not turned off by these ideas, Necro raps with a thick, gravelly, tough voice that jumps out at the listeners and compels them to listen.
"Hardcore rap" doesn't even begin to describe Necro's lyrics. He's a tough guy from Brooklyn who raps less about himself but about a level of senseless depravity and inhuman ingenuity. Those who might see Necro as an alternative rapper based on this description shouldn't be mislead: the lyrics are nothing but shock value, and Necro even says this himself in his lyrics. There are hints of social commentary, but to define Necro as a conscious rapper would be incredibly pretentious. Some bits from this album
do make you think, like the unusually relevant Manson samples, but the album also samples scenes from
The Silence of the Lambs and
Blood Sucking Freaks.
Underneath Necro's voice, though, the music here is really good. The hip hop tracks are well done and an excellent example of the hands-on, producer-based approach typical of East Coast hip hop. Necro shows his love of exploitation horror flicks by sampling the scores of a number of '70s and '80s cult classics (including a kung fu movie score and Fabio Frizzi's score for Lucio Fulci's
City of the Living Dead) and turns the
Scarface theme "Push It To The Limit" into a gore song with guest death metal vocals by Jamey Jasta, screamed over a hip hop beat, sampled horns and a female opera singer. The metal tracks are legit metal, despite the rapped vocals. The many metal musicians that turn up on this album show that Necro really loves and knows the genre.
The entire album is intense, and quite a few of these tracks are actually disturbing, with or without Necro's vocals. Necro's production skills are made even more apparent on the instrumental version of the album. This album is offensive, over-the-top, perverse, insane exploitation horror rap, and it's one of the most extreme things you're likely to hear. This is even played for laughs in a skit featuring a female singer who soulfully sings some of the most profane lyrics you'll ever hear out of a woman's mouth.
