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9 out of 10
It's been a long wait of 4 years to hear the new Everlast long player. After such a successful career spanning 20 years, first off as the one and only white rap artist in Ice-T's Rhyme Syndicate rosta, and then onto worldwide success as one third of House Of Pain, who as part of the Soul Assassins collective along with Cypress Hill and Funkdoobiest had one of the early 90's most successful rap world tours (Which I was lucky enough to see at Brixton Academy, London in 1994).
Everlast, real name Erik Schrody, then went solo again and chose a different route by fusing rap and a blues-folk sound together and then along with Guitar legend Carlos Santana won a Grammy.
Now Everlast has set up his own label, Martyr-Inc records, and has released his fifth solo album through it.
The album has a great introduction with the Horns blowing announcing the start of a journey of 16 tracks and a host of different subjects to get through. 'Kill The Emperor' the first song takes you back to a previous guise showing off his gruff rap vocals.
I was very interested to hear the second track and loved the start with Sen Dog from Cypress Hill introducing it. Everlast then embarks on a cover of Johnny Cash's 'Folsom Prison Blues' and also samples the previously mentioned Hill's 'Insane In The Brain' throughout the whole track. The tune has been very carefully mixed together making the old 1955 Sun records classic as relevant today as it was 53 years ago.
A lot must have happened to Everlast since his last album, he is very upfront about certain losses in his life. The first half is more up-tempo compared to the second half, where the tunes are more sentiment based and discussing the love side of his personality.
Looking at the track titles, stones seem to be a regular occurrence. 'Letters Home From The Garden Of Stone' is an obvious look at the current war in Iraq and how the soldiers are dying for their country, praying for their own salvation, and washing away the blood they spill whilst missing their families.
This album deserves to have a lot of commercial success but I can't imagine this achieving much radio airplay, which is a great shame. Everlast has grown with every album not just as a person with great depth but also as a guitarist, which this album certainly shows off well.
I for one will be going to see him play live when or if we are lucky enough for him to grace the UK shores.
I would advise anyone to buy this collection of tracks.
Listen: www.myspace.com/theofficialeverlast
Tracklist:
1. Kill The Emperor
2. Folsom Prison Blues
3. Stone In My Hand
4. Anyone
5. Die In Yer Arms
6. Friend
7. Everyone
8. Naked
9. Stay
10. Letters Home From The Garden Of Stone
11. Tuesday Morning
12. Throw A Stone
13. Weakness
14. Dirty
15. The Ocean
16. Let It Go
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