Tell you what, the new release from the ferocious, tough talking Jedi Mind Tricks is unlikely to bridge the divide between those who love them and those who hate them. Vinnie Paz is still talking loud, still heaping on the religious rhetoric like some souped-up Osama Bin Laden and still making broad, sweeping, faintly ridiculous comments about ‘faggots’ (not that we could possibly defend every Camp David, of course) Oh, and by his own admission his appetite for blood is still ‘gruesomely insatiable’. And when it’s directed at the American government, it’s legitimate. When it’s directed at the sweater-wearing, tea-loving Christian as in tracks like “Scars of the Crucifix”, however, it’s a tad lacking in water-tight arguments: Christians make out Muslims are dangerous. So what we gonna do? We’re going to kill them. Makes a whole lotta sense doesn’t it.
With titles like ‘The Age Of Sacred Terror’, ‘Killah Priest’, ‘Spirit Of Hate’ and ‘Philosophy Of Horror’ you’ll appreciate it can be pretty heavy going, just as you’ll appreciate how fundamentally flawed its interior is: legitimising violence under the pretext of religious fervour and intent undermines the very logic of violence itself, never mind religion. Violence is it’s own reward. And violence has little to do with Allah. What it does constitute, however, is a thoroughly magical poetics of blood.
Contentious subject matter aside though, beatmaker Stoupe and emcee Paz have crafted a beautiful if grotesque theatre of the soul, as densely layered, idiosyncratic and disturbingly frank as anything you’re likely to hear: ornate, bohemian, classic and as grand as a cathedral.
Everybody has his or her right to be heard – just like everyone has their right to hear only what they choose to hear – and on this occasion neither party are guilty.