According to no less an authority than band point man
Jahred, getting the boot from Jive was the best thing that ever happened to
[hed] pe. "Finally we've been released," he wrote in January '04 to fans on
[hed]'s official website. "Now it's time to get back to some real dirty-ass sh*t!" And he wasn't kidding.
Only in Amerika is the Cali combo's 2005 debut for Koch. Raunchy and abrasive, its thrash-hop spew takes cues from
Anthrax,
Korn, Dirty South, pre-acting career
Ice-T, and the uncompromising Psychopathic Records collective. The powerful melodies and layered production of 2003's
Blackout are gone --
Amerika features the relentless half-time pace of ex-
Otep drummer Moke, stabs of enormous guitar, and drop-ins from DJ Product.
Jahred's choppy, half-yelled rhymes are ever defiant, but they're also chaotic to the point of ineffectiveness. In the space of just a few lines he promotes marijuana, insults women and homosexuals, condemns Al Qaeda, defends the first amendment, and calls out the record industry. The rap-metal hybrid "War" is nationalism at gut-level. "Don't you want your freedom?"
Jahred asks in the rallying chorus, and then lists club-going, casual sex, and smoking weed as American points of pride. (And for the evil-doers, a message: "We got guns and sh*t/You're all lame.") "Box" is one of the album's more cohesive tracks, driving the swagger of its hip-hop verses through a giant guitar-driven chorus. And the slinky, pounding percussion and call-and-response lyrical structure of "Raise Hell" is a bludgeoning amplification of
Lil Jon's crunk style, its tag line even cribbing from
Jon's 2002 single "I Don't Give A...." Late-album entries "Amerikan Beauty" and "Chicken" are interesting musically, but they're overrun by social apathy and misogyny. And ultimately that's the issue with
Only in Amerika. It wants to be a confrontational megaphone in the ear of conservatives, but
Jahred's torrential rhetoric is too messy and blatantly offensive to incite anything but superficial anger, and the music -- though occasionally explosive -- takes a backseat to the ranting.
[hed] pe diehards will love this
Amerika, but it speaks only to their niche. ~ Johnny Loftus