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Army Of The Pharaohs - Ritual Of BattleAlbum Review by:
John Burnett
Thursday, September 27, 2007
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Somewhere along the way Hip Hop lost the thud of the warrior’s drum. That thump was replaced by the more pop-friendly synthesized keys, which in turn forced the aggressive head nod to evolve into a soft two-step. Subject content followed the same pattern with the harsh street realities that were presented in the 90s transforming into a never-ending cycle of YouTube dance moves and “making it rain.” Creeping in the shadows, there’s an East Coast assemblage of underground talent named the Army of the Pharaohs (Vinnie Paz and Jus Allah of Jedi Mind Tricks, Outerspace, Esoteric, Celph Titled, Chief Kamachi, Reef The Lost Cauze, Doap Nixon and Demoz) who are poised to bring back the boom bap and banish the happy-go-lucky version of rap that’s emerged in the new millennium on their sophomore effort, Ritual of Battle.
The album commences with the shocking and violent verse of Chief Kamachi who rhymes about knocking down the towers on 9/11 and putting dismembered body parts in a car trunk. Demoz follows with a rapid fire flow packed with quick-hitting punchlines, but the highlight of the track is the dark humor of Celph Titled who concludes the track with “who else but you Celph/no sandals on my shoe shelf, just a pellet gun that would leave a huge welt/Army of the Pharaohs never make love songs/we finger fuck bitches with Freddy Krueger gloves on.” Jedi Mind Tricks’ members, Vinnie Paz and Jus Allah, go at “Blue Steel” without the aid of fellow AOTP member. Despite the absence of the crew, Vinnie Paz displays why he leads this troop with his skillful verse chalk full of memorable quips like “I’ll take Jesus Christ and rob him of his Jewishness/it’s nothing anything or anyone can do to test/I live inside a jungle. All I need is fruit that’s fresh.” On the lead single of the album “Bloody Tears” DJ Kwestion accesses a palette of hard-hitting drums, turn table scratches, a looped piano sequence and a violin to set a grave tone with the production while Vinnie Paz continues to outshine other Army Of The Pharaohs members using his verse on “Bloody Tears” to take shots at the college dropout, Kanye West, while simultaneously dropping several lyrical napalms on the beat. All the members of the AOTP are lyrically sharp, but the violent and aggressive repetitive lyrical content makes the album drag towards the end. The album’s mood doesn’t lighten up until the final track, 15 tracks deep into the LP, on “Don’t Cry.” The track makes perfect sense in that it explains the aggression present on this LP that is caused by the poverty, grind and struggle that’s present in the ghettos yet after hearing several tracks about bullets ripping through flesh, impaling people and other random acts of violence, “Don’t Cry” comes off as too little, too late.
The collection of tracks on Ritual of Battle is so grimy and morbid that it would make your current favorite hard body emcee run and shudder and will probably have the same effect on your average Hip Hop fan. Army Of The Pharaohs’s group members all contribute their unique style to the cauldron reminiscent of another 9 member group from New York (Wu Tang) but their concoction, Ritual of Battle, lacks the chemistry and focus of early Wu Tang projects. Every track is a lyrical melee with no real direction which makes it difficult to run the album from top to bottom without the material getting monotonous. Ritual of Battle is an album for a specific niche of hardcore East Coast underground heads and despite the endless violence there are still some head bangers on Ritual Of Battle but if you’re not apart of the cult they’re targeting it’s safe to pass on Ritual Of Battle.
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