The Urban Dance Squad's penultimate album was also its most heavily metal-influenced. "Demagogue," the album's opener and centerpiece, is an utterly bracing concoction of raw-throated rap and spare, bright metal guitar, all underlaid with minimalist funk drums. That formula remains basically unaltered throughout the rest of the album -- "Good Grief," "(Some) Chitchat" and "Selfstyled" all step to the same stripped-down hip-hop beat. It starts sounding pretty samey by the end, of course, but ...   [ read more ]

CD $15.18

The most recent Urban Dance Squad album is reissued here in a deluxe two-fer that also includes a live recording from New York in 1997. Kudos to Triple X for the fine packaging and for having the good taste to give these Dutch metal/hip-hop-heads another shot at the U.S. market that ignored them, so inexplicably, during their seven-year career. It's not that Americans don't like the idea of rock/hip-hop fusion -- witness the popularity of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. But for some reason, the {$Urban...   [ read more ]

CD $15.18

The sophomore slump hit Urban Dance Squad rather hard, or maybe it just seemed that way based on the consistently high quality of their debut. Life 'n Perspective of a Genuine Crossover sounds aimless where its predecessor came off as shrewdly eclectic. It's not that there aren't great moments: "Careless" is nice mid-tempo hip-hop with a blues base, and the strangely named "(Thru) the Gates of the Big Fruit" showcases some great turntable work from DJ DNA as well as country-ish slid...   [ read more ]

CD $15.18