Loaded

iTunes Review

On his third album Brotha Lynch Hung continued to refine his style, but this time he put extra emphasis on his rapping and brought a foil onboard to explore more unhinged mental states. First Degree the D.E. appears on about half the tracks, and he provides a wonderfully deranged counterpart to Lynch’s lean horror rhymes. First Degree has an elastic flow, dipping into a low croak for one line then going high pitched the next. His presence is more that of a feverish apparition than mortal performer. By comparison, Lynch seems like our earthly guide, although his rhymes here are no less compromising. As he succinctly explains in “Die- 1 By 1”: “I’m Wes Craven on paper.” He continues to explore realms of psychosis and splatter imagery, but his patented brand of horrorcore was finally beginning to pay off, and for the first time we witness Lynch’s vision of himself as a successful entrepreneur. Loaded shows the maestro tightening up his sound, although one of the album’s best songs — “My Soul To Keep” — is a hallucinatory ramble that seems to materialize from the purple mist.