You know how righteous rap fans say that brutal hip-hop can't turn kids into monsters? Well, not only is that bullshit, but I dare you to give this disc to your adolescent nephew for Christmas — the debut of Trust, Gage-One, and Rhetoric is degenerate enough to turn a Boy Scout into a screwball. Dancing on dark, cherubic symphonies, the Mission Hill squad kick violent rhymes that are both frightening and, in a twisted sort of way, enlightening. The murky "Lyricist Supremacist" tastes like Shady-Cage-and-Gravediggaz gazpacho, "Underground Crusades" is capable of cracking soft craniums, "Via Frontlines" barrels through barbed wire — and all three butcher the gore orchestra screeching underneath. A laudable street-rap effort should make you fear for your life — it's the aural equivalent of being robbed at razor point. Trust, Gage, and Rheto know those alleys well, and after years of inebriated negligence, they've finally committed their trials to a full-length.
Feeders of the Flamez will trigger flashbacks in anybody schooled on basement boom-bap, graf, and acid tabs. For those who converted to the underground after that era, this is a golden crash course in artistic nihilism.
