Kool Keith: The Return Of Dr. Octagon : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

On his first record in ten years, Dr. Octagon greets you with his answering machine: "Our operators are masturbating right now, but your call has been placed in a bucket of stomach fluid." From there, Octagon -- a.k.a. Kool Keith, a Bronx-born MC and veteran of several great rap projects -- keeps his off-the-wall steez on blast for a messy, gloriously weird sci-fi hip-hop record. Berlin production team One Watt Sun work up futuristic beatscapes with psychedelic soul ("It's the Morning"), rocking electrofunk ("Ants") and a few too many slow, murky jams ("Jumpstar"). Octagon's verses often feel unfocused and random, but when he bears down he can be mesmerizing, channeling his quick-tongued rhymes with streetwise brassiness and cosmic vibrations. On "Gorilla Driving a Pick-Up Truck" he weaves a phantasmagoric road-trip tale that includes run-over reindeer and a bandanna-wearing nemesis, and on "Dr. Octagon" he drops quick-tongued wordplay as sensible as anything else on the record: "Me and Batman and the rhino/Just left Spider-Man smokin' PCP in McDonald's/With two Asian models."