Slow Suicide Stimulus

With just a little more righteous anger, New Jersey collective Slow Suicide Stimulus would make a pretty strong bid to become the Public Enemy of the post-millennial age. The debut album by the underground quartet led by rappers Tame One and Dusted Dons is filled with the kind of heavy beats, layers of samples, and aggressive sound mixing that the Bomb Squad perfected back in the day, and the lyrics are politically and socially charged. The difference is that Slow Suicide Stimulus has a considerably more cynical, almost fatalistic feel to its lyrics, so much that even the most outraged song on the album, "Antidote," sounds like it's delivered with a diffident shrug. Different times indeed, but the primary pleasures of the album are in the exceedingly inventive arrangements and powerful beats underpinning the songs, so it's not a fatal problem even for those who miss Chuck D's seething. Slow Suicide Stimulus is as musically inventive and exciting as hip-hop got in 2006. [A 2006 edition includes one bonus track.] ~ Stewart Mason, All Music Guide