FFWD Weekly
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| CD REVIEW KILLAH PRIEST · The umpteenth solo release from a member of the ubiquitous Wu-Tang Clan. · To quote De Niro's Taxi Driver: "Listen you screwheads, here is a man who would not take it anymore." Just as pissed and kooky as Travis Bickle, Killah Priest makes the imminent American apocalypse both scary and fun. You want something spooky, kids? Forget about Trent Reznor, Marilyn Manson and all those other poofy goth goofs and meet Killah Priest, the latest member of the ever expanding Wu-Tang Clan to release a solo album, Heavy Mental. Priest takes the nightmare of the American ghetto and contextualizes it into a vision of biblical, apocalyptic revisionism. With his lead voice grafted onto the trademark steel pulse Wu sound, he crafts dense urban poetry laced with psuedo-Christian mysticism that bypasses the peaceful message of the Sermon on the Mount for the hellfire of Revelations. Sure it gets a bit goofy at times - he betrays a Heaven's Gate kinship by revealing that Bible is an acronym for basic instructions before leaving Earth - but, for the most part, this archangel of the projects is one of the most inventive and chilling hip hop lyricists in recent memory. With Puffy (oh, how suitable that name is) all over the airwaves it's somewhat comforting to know that Killah Priest, armed with "Christ with a Mack-10" is poised and ready to herald in a new era. 4/5 Zoltan Varadi |