El-P: Fantastic Damage : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

Since his days with New York indie rappers Company Flow, El-P has been challenging hip-hop conventions with unapologetically inscrutable rhymes and noisy, chaotic tracks. True to form, his solo debut, Fantastic Damage, is a heavy, turbulent affair. Lumbering, industrial beats and inflamed verses bristle against gridlock car-horn bleats, jarring guitar fuzz and dial-tone drones. Wade through the rubble for a few listens and you'll find some gems: "Tuned Mass Damper" thunders with torture-chamber yowls and colossal riffs, and "Stepfather Factory" is a blistering, gorgeous portrait of a plant that assembles robotic relatives on the cheap. Whether he's disparaging Disney or kicking sex raps, El-P propels his dense poetry with some serious conviction. He comes out swinging wildly, but Fantastic Damage has plenty of knockout force.

KATHRYN MCGUIRE
(RS 898 - June 20, 2002)