I think that Boondox might lay claim to being Georgia's answer to Eminem. But keep reading after I say this next part. He used to be on Insane Clown Posse's label. Please hear me out before you write him off entirely. Boondox is not ICP and he's certainly not "Kid Rock meets ICP" as one reviewer claimed, either. This isn't the best starting point for a listener not already down with the "guy in face paint raps horror" aesthetic. For a general hip-hop fan not generally into horror-tinged rap, Boondox is a really hard sell for pretty much everything on the surface.
Boondox' debut
The Harvest is a bit like the musical equivalent of a slasher movie. Lyrically, it's well done, but substance-wise, it isn't that insightful. But it's fun. On the musical side, it had a kind of Southern hip-hop sound along the lines of groups like Nappy Roots with some U-turns like a country rap song about getting drunk and high and raising the dead with voodoo, and a couple of hard rock type songs. Then he released an EP called
Punkinhed which was kind of more of the same: horrorcore lyrics, a country rap song about Southern nights, but with at least one thing setting it apart from it's longer predecessor, that the title track was a rap-metal song.
Obviously the fact that Boondox was from the South (Georgia specifically) and rapped about the South from the perspective of a Southern country boy, not a city boy, differentiated himself from horrorcore rappers who used the South as a reference point for a cesspool of evil, inbreeding and racism (in, for example, Insane Clown Posse's "Your Rebel Flag"), but Boondox was still not making music with the crossover appeal to general hip-hop fans who generally weren't inherently embracive of either horrorcore rappers or rappers that mixed rap with country or rock (though these crossovers would be minimal in the first three Boondox releases, which mostly stayed close to hip-hop). General hip-hop audiences were also slow to embrace the also formerly niche Twiztid. In general, anything connected to ICP was subject to eyebrow raising because ICP, due to bad press, were held in question as a legitimate part of hip-hop culture until recently, and the rappers signed to their label as product and an extension of the ICP brand. Credibility and legitimacy is hard to establish to general hip-hop audiences for white rappers, rappers from the South, horrorcore rappers and rappers associating themselves with ICP by identifying as a "Juggalo". Boondox was all of those and he wouldn't completely distance himself from ICP until a few albums later. Objectively, his last two Psychopathic releases,
South of Hell and
Abaddon are the least ICP-sounding of his Psychopathic releases.
Objectively,
The Harvest feels like an ICP album. From an artistic perspective, the lyrical growth on
Krimson Creek is a huge step forward in establishing Boondox as a separate entity, and very much not "ICP from the South".
Krimson Creek is the first album of his to explore his confessional, introspective lyrical style, and it's on these tracks that Boondox really shines as a lyricist, more than the "dope-drinking-party" cuts and the "murder death kill" cuts."Untold/Unwritten" is very lyrically real and a huge change of place lyrically from the Scarecrow coming to life and murdering people fantasies of
The Harvest . In "Untold/Unwritten", Boondox raps about his uncle trying to murder him, which was a true event from his life. The horror references in the song now become more metaphorical than literal, and with Boondox seemingly writing more of his lyrics this time, with the references like "When the Devil came to Georgia, made his first stop in Covington" feeling more personal because they're coming from Boondox and not ICP's Violent J.
A typical trait of Psychopathic Records releases is that several of them have lyrics ghostwritten by ICP (with the exception of Twiztid's), which doesn't display the lyrical skills of their artists (though other rap labels, like Death Row, did this before), and generally the second album is more personal and reflects the rapper's own artistic voice more, and allows them to develop their own storytelling concept rather than just the WWE-type gimmick ICP developed for the first record.
Boondox hadn't yet fully reached the crossover point where his approach would appeal to listeners outside of the established niche that already ate up his music. I also generally feel like, in spite of this being more lyrically substantial than his first album, it's overall much less fun, and feels more bleak and sorrowful. Take the dirge rap-metal of "Inbred Evil" for example. That clearly wasn't written with general hip-hop listeners in mind, and despite being in the same divorced from reality fantasy horror approach of his first album, it's not as easy to listen to, due to the slow beat and very not-catchy lyrics. This song runs away from normal listeners, and having the serial killer subject of the lyrics being the product of incest further paints a dark veil over the lyrics. It's definitely not the best introduction to Boondox as a lyricist, nor is angry closer "Death of a Hater" in which 'dox and Twiztid's Jamie Madrox rap about murdering "haters" who are judgmental towards their music over a synthy backing track, and these tracks which are more likely to drive away general hip-hop listeners are unfortunately the unappealing bread in a sandwich that includes some very good ingredients. It's not that the bread is stale, mind you, but it might be unappealing because it's died black and it's not Halloween.
There's also a bit of mood whiplash following "Inbred" with the sex rap "Freak Bitch", which in the tradition of rappers like Too Short goes into pornographically explicit detail about having sex with one of his fans (who is described as having a tattoo of Boondox between her legs) and the country rap "Heathen" which kind of plays out like a manifesto over twangy guitars and 808 beats ("coming from nothing/we're having a good time/get high just to make it/but we're gon' be alright"), the latter of which is actually one of the album's high points. "Heathen" is catchy and warrants repeated listening, capturing the fun aspects of his first album with a more personalized approach separating 'dox much more lyrically from ICP, and pushing himself more as his own man artistically.
The country-rap style is much more present on this LP than on the first two releases, but still not as heavily on
South of Hell, but on
Krimson , four tracks--"Heathen", "Straight Out The Crops", "Path I Walk" and "Trailer Park Creepin'" feature some level of country sound, with "Path I Walk" being a kind of acoustic ballad with introspective, personal rap lyrics, and "Trailer Park Creepin'" having a kind of country-blues sound paired with rap lyrics fantasizing about being on the run from the police because, after walking in on your girlfriend riding your best friend's face, you pulled a Slim Shady and set the trailer on fire with both of them in it.
From a analytical perspective, on the subject of Boondox' relation to the country rap style he occasionally dabbles in, Boondox's songs about the positive aspects of the South relate strongly to the societal and still ongoing "new South" approach to rehabilitating the South's image in the eyes of non-Southerners as being more progressive and inclusionary, and Boondox as an artist belongs to the sector of country-rap that rolls with both Three 6 Mafia and Waylon Jennings, not the less reputable type of country-rap that reinforced negative stereotypes about white Southerners that tends to turn people away from the genre. Boondox was doing country-rap when it was unheard of, before some rappers ended up tainting it's reputation and before Lil Nas X' "Old Town Road" gave the sound mainstream popularity and legitimacy that Boondox, Struggle Jennings and a few others would sit into, as inclusionary artists that love and respect hip-hop and refuse to cater to listeners that are openly hostile towards hip-hop.
I didn't listen to this album that many times after it came out and rarely in one sitting until recently, but there's a lot more positive than negative to this LP on an aesthetic basis, but you don't listen to aesthetics, you listen to music, and honestly the overall musical vibes don't click for me on this record as much as
South of Hell,
Abaddon or
The Harvest , despite
Krimson Creek having at some points more lyrical substance than
The Harvest . 'dox is growing as an artist here and there's a lot to respect, but your mileage on this will depend entirely on what you're looking for. If you're looking for a horror movie for the ears set to music and told via rapping, a lot of
Krimson Creek will appeal to you, but as an LP it's a bit much, feeling like two EPs stitched together, one being dark and downbeat and the other being more fun, and the two sides don't fit together.
Boondox later took the best aspects of what worked here and made a better album,
South of Hell, but
Krimson Creek is of note for showing the development of Boondox the artist, not "Boondox the ICP sideshow act", in doing more to show that 'dox is his own artist, and that he's not an extension of the artistic arm of ICP and certainly not "ICP for Kid Rock fans". Boondox isn't the South's ICP. If anything, I'm seeing a lot more Eminem in Boondox than ICP listening to this again. Like Eminem, Boondox takes on multiple personas to express different sides of his art, having previously recorded as gangsta rapper Turncoat Dirty and Boondox as the psychopathic serial killer alter ego similar to Slim Shady.
There's more humor and fun songs on his other albums, though, and Boondox lyrics are at their best when they come from a place of introspection and confession, like on "Fear", where he speaks from his real life perspective, as a father, of the fear that his children will lose their daddy, or connecting to real-life darkness, like "Untold/Unwritten's" lyrics on his own childhood trauma. The follow-up from 2010 serves as a better introduction for balancing the different sides of Boondox' lyrical scheme far better and more firmly establishing Boondox as a strong lyricist.
Overall, though,
Krimson Creek is a good LP despite not being as strong overall as the artist's other albums. From the start his storytelling skills were undeniable, and there truly isn't another artist like him. Just keep in mind that, A, this is more of a audio horror movie than a song-oriented album, B,
South of Hell is way more accessible and a better album especially to start out with, and C, like all horrorcore, this is best listened to when tanked under the influence of some kind of intoxicant, like marijuana, which is presumably the biggest influence on the whole genre.
Best tracks: "Untold/Unwritten", "Heathen", "Straight Out The Crops", "Path I Walk", "Trailer Park Creepin'", "Fear"
