Murder 4 Hire

Album review

With the exception of the controversy surrounding their extremely anti-authoritarian anthem "Cop Killer," Ice-T's sidebar as a metalhead frontman for Body Count was always a little difficult to keep interested in, let alone take seriously. Despite solid if generic B-grade metal performances from guitarist/riff-writer Ernie C. and the rest of the band, Ice-T's shouted lyrics and headbanger posturing seemed like a Spinal Tap-esque parody at best and a painfully embarrassing joke played by the bandmembers on themselves at worst. Yet somehow this misstep that should have lasted for a single tune continued deep into the new millennium, with Murder 4 Hire arriving as the astonishing fourth full-length from the band. Though the album took nine years to complete, coming to a standstill with the 2004 death of guitarist D-Roc the Executioner, the show went on with almost zero evolution from their hackneyed '90s output. Ice-T runs through the usual topics that come up in his metal brainstorms: rednecks, relationships, murder, religion, and the like. The Bush-era war on terrorism comes up, sort of, on "Dirty Bombs," but like much of the rest of the album, it's convoluted to the point of being laughable, and entertaining more in a slow-motion train-wreck way than as legitimate metal of any kind.

© Fred Thomas /TiVo