The Phoenix Network:
 
 
About  |  Advertise
 
Big Hurt  |  CD Reviews  |  Classical  |  Jazz  |  Live Reviews  |  Music Features
Best2012Vote-1000x50

Jedi Mind Tricks | Violence Begets Violence

Enemy Soil (2011)
By CHRIS FARAONE  |  November 9, 2011
3.5 3.5 Stars

JMT-M

It's a daily struggle to avoid murdering Drake fans who bump that trash on the train in front of me, cliché Auto-Tune hooks leaking from their Skull Candy and polluting my perimeter. But thanks to the new Jedi Mind Tricks album, I'm finally building up enough courage to shove a tone-deaf shitbag on the tracks. True to its title, Violence Begets Violence is the Philly powerhouse's most aggressive effort yet, a morally polluted playground that no sane unarmed person should dare to frolic in. Jedi Mind's enduring longevity can be attributed to Vinnie Paz and Jus Allah's commitment to unrelenting bloodshed, not to mention their reluctance to mellow with age. Although they've matured as MCs, Jedi Mind is more or less a side project at this point, a dark and homicidal hellscape in which the pair can narrate their nastiest nightmares. Of course Jus and Vinnie need the right doom symphonies to mash on, and for Begets they had to find them outside the camp since Jedi Mind producer Stoupe sat this round out. It's all good though — as the most valuable underground rap producer of all-time, Stoupe has inspired legions of similarly spirited sons. Rising to the occasion, Massachusetts track architect C-Lance comes through the hardest, crushing four cuts, including "Willing a Destruction onto Humanity," a Stoupe tribute if there ever was one, complete with twisted Latin angels in the background. Other standouts come from Hypnotist on "Target Practice," and Mr. Green, whose cherubic "Design in Malice" with Pace Won and Young Zee "puts pressure on you kids just like a soccer mom." If you're looking for new tricks from Jedi Mind, look elsewhere. But for a full-force pillage and reminders that Rick Ross and Barack Obama are both complete frauds, Jus and Vinnie deliver once again.

JEDI MIND TRICKS + OUTERSPACE + JAYSAUN | Paradise Rock Club, 967 Comm Ave, Boston | November 11 @ 8 pm | 18+ | $18 | 617.562.8800

Related: The Big Hurt: Billboard Top Hip-Hop and R and B songs, Review: La Roux at the Paradise, This bird can sing, More more >
  Topics: CD Reviews , Paradise Rock Club, Music, Jedi Mind Tricks,  More more >
| More

 Friends' Activity   Popular   Most Viewed 
[ 02/01 ]   Red Baraat  @ T.T. the Bear's Place
[ 02/01 ]   Rise Against + A Day to Remember + The Menzingers  @ Tsongas Center at UMass Lowell
[ 02/01 ]   Superior Donuts  @ Lyric Stage Company of Boston
ARTICLES BY CHRIS FARAONE
Share this entry with Delicious
  •   WILL GOVERNOR PATRICK STRIKE OUT?  |  January 25, 2012
    Governor Deval Patrick used part of Monday's State of the Commonwealth address to break his public silence on pending law-enforcement legislation.
  •   OCCUPYING THE NEW HAMPSHIRE PRIMARY  |  January 11, 2012
    The nation's first presidential primary isn't new terrain for activists.
  •   KENJI NAKAYAMA TAKES AN AGE-OLD CRAFT TO NEW PLACES  |  January 11, 2012
    This winter, the Butera School of Art in Back Bay commences its last-ever sign-making classes, teaching students how to hand-letter everything from yachts to mom-and-pop shops.
  •   OCCUPY FIRST NIGHT  |  January 04, 2012
    If the Boston Police Department had undercover officers embedded in the Occupy Boston First Night operation, they would have found a whole mess of juicy goods to bring back to the Suffolk County district attorney's office.
  •   CALLING OUT 'THREE STRIKES'  |  January 05, 2012
    Three nights before Christmas, hundreds of concerned citizens crammed into the St. James African Orthodox Church in Roxbury to address what one civil-rights activist calls "the most stunningly racist piece of legislation" to hit Massachusetts in decades.

 See all articles by: CHRIS FARAONE

MOST POPULAR
RSS Feed of for the most popular articles
 Most Viewed   Most Emailed