Pros: tight rhymes, a new-wave feel to hip-hop, unique style
Cons: album has been delayed for almost a year now, with no word on its release
The Bottom Line: my final recommendation is that Volcano Records release this goddamn album before i get medieval on their punk asses. for the children.
st3on1ey1baby's Full Review: Volumizer by 2 Skinnee J's
People, when you’re a Skinnee fan, there is only so long you can go without new songs before you break. I reached my breaking point this weekend when I downloaded the AudioGalaxy Satellite software to loot Volcano Records for my Skinnee fix. Hey, I had lead vocalist J. Guevara’s blessing to do so – that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
Capricorn Records was supposed to release this album in September of 2000, then pushed it back to February of 2001, then went belly-up and most artists on that label moved to Volcano Records, and Volumizer’s future was uncertain….well THEN, the J’s said to go get their album off Napster because they had no idea when it would get released either. I waited patiently for a release date, but I couldn’t take it any more. Eleven downloads later, I had Volumizer. And, oh man, is it EVER amazing. Shame on Volcano Records!
I won’t go into all the tracks here, but hopefully the following four described will be enough to get your puffs pumped to buy this album when it’s available.
3 Minutes
Droppin’ the lyrical madness on a walkie talkie, J. Guevara’s yawning voice starts off the song:
ground zero, bow down to the countdown
bring in the ruckus to points around the compass
from the depths of outer space to the center of the earth
we’re gettin’ down for what it’s worth
we’re gettin’ down for now
This song encapsulates the Skinnee sound to a T (whatever that means). While vocalists Special J. and J. Guevara trade rhymes, the unique keyboarding and guitar riffs that give every 2 Skinnee song a familiar flavor will grab your attention. This track has a catchy, repetitive violin riff (can you call it that?) that gives it an eerie feel of a thriller flick as well, making it stand out from anything they’ve done before. I likes.
The Girl with the World in Her Eyes
Probably about the closest the J’s will ever get to a love song, this track features hyped keyboarding reminiscent of the p-funk era with fuzzy guitar riffs throughout the chorus:
Is she thinking of you? No she just thought she knew me
But she's looking at you! No she's just looking through me
And now I realize I've got no shape or size to the girl with the world in her eyes
So I keep bouncing, yes I keep bouncing, I keep bouncing, So I keep bouncing
If I had to compare the feel of this song to anything currently out in the music scene, I’d have to mix Daft Punk’s “Something About Us” with the Pharcyde’s “Passin’ Me By”.
Big Beat Evangelists
While this song starts off as being a heavy rap tune with the J’s belting out rhymes in a militant style, you must listen through the first 2 minutes and 20 seconds until the transition for a wonderful payoff. It’s very hard to describe how the song changes when Special J. says “Cause when it’s all said and done things will finally come together and make some sense” – but picture outer space. That’s all I can think of saying because it sounds very galactic and very beautiful.
Loud Neighbors
Who’s got the funk in their trunk? (say what?!) Loud Neighbors seems to be new territory for the J’s. While their music has always had upbeat guitars, keyboards, and bass lines, it’s never really given me that lowdown dirty funk feel. Without a doubt, you can tell it’s the 2 Skinnee’s but it really seems to have a new element, which I guess is also felt throughout the entire album, but much more evident on this song. With its party-anthem chorus (“It aint loud enough for all of us, We break you out of your shell, We came to rock, rock the decibels”) and 80’s funk-explosion flavor, I listed this track simply because it’s so different from early Skinnee material.
And I haven’t even touched on some of the J’s secret weapons in the Volumizer artillery! Horns of Destruction, Stockholm Love, and Coming Home are all great tracks that continuously rock my Yamaha computer subwoofer system.
It wouldn’t really be fair though for me to say this album is perfect and deserving of 5 stars (but it is fair to say their 1998 release, SuperMercado IS), because it does have one track that I listen to and wonder “what the hell were they thinking?” That would be the song Brew Ha Ha - I just don’t like it. Also, Pass the Buck seems just OK to me, not really Skinnee standard.
There is also a new song for the album, which I don’t have yet because they just recorded it for the new Volcano Records version, while this review is of the Capricorn Records version.
One of these days, I will have a legal copy of this album! And I hope you get one too. Stay Skinnee.
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