Track Listing

1. Iron Galaxy
2. Ox Out Of The Cage
3. Atom - Cannibal Ox & Alaska/Cryptic
4. B-Boy's Alpha
5. Raspberry Fields
6. Straight Off The DIC
7. Vein
8. F Word
9. Stress Rap
10. Battle For Asgard - Cannibal Ox & LIFE Long/C Rayz Walz
11. Real Earth
12. Ridiculoid - Cannibal Ox & El-P
13. Painkillers
14. Pigeon

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #9544 in Music
• Released on: 2001-08-20
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .21 pounds

Amazon.co.uk Review
Cannibal Ox's Vast Aire Kramer and Vordul Megala Shamar have struck a cold vein in hip-hop and come up with digital gold. Digging for dignity in an iron galaxy, to raise human tragedy beyond the small black print of the crime pages, these rap Vikings write rhymes in the blood of the slain, spit-sacred thought in the service of salvation. With production by Company Flow's El-P (who also appears on the group's ghetto-vaudeville theme tune "Ox out the Cage" and the industry-sniping "Ridiculoid"), the backdrop to their rap reality-myth is a drone-heavy matrix of gritty, atomised funk and reconstructed beats. Alaska and Cryptic of Atoms Family (the larger group to whom Can Ox pledge allegiance) guest on "Atom", colliding with their compadres like charged molecules. While on "A B-Boy's Alpha" Vast and Vordul present a rugged primer to the strife life. Powered by a paralysing banshee-wail, "Raspberry Fields" douses the Beatles with brown acid and dumps them on the baddest corner on the block for a battle to the death with the flesh-eating MCs. Closer "Pigeon" unlocks the rock box, pitching bowed electric guitar with redemptive organ chords, while Vast takes flight with words that lick the air with violence and Vordul spreads melanin wings to shield his fellow warriors from horror. No bad blood here, just cold veins locked in pitched battle to rend the world from the grip of iron, and release its populous like ions. --Chris Campion

CD Description
Debut album from New York avant-garde hip-hop stars Vordul and Vast Aire, proteges of former Company Flow mainman El-P,who produced this record. Features lyrically dense, intelligent, sci-fi inspired raps over El-P's raw synths and heavy beats.

Customer Reviews

Hot like me nans water water in the pot
Yeah, tight. As the other reviewer says takes it from where co-flow left off. Superb mystical electronic El-p production, typical of the man, make this LP what it is. The MCing is hot though but it is the beats which give the piece it's character, and what a character! If you enjoyed funcrusherplus this is for you, I was disputing whether to buy this for some time as the group cannibal ox to me was something totally new, but my faith in the el producto paid off. Superlative tracks include 'Iron Galaxy' 'Straight of the D.I.C.' 'The F word'and 'Stress raps' although the whole album is so good this is very subjective. This is the sort of record which takes you away from the world, with it's other worldly sounds and qualities, almost a-kin to the blade runner soundtrack. Buy this, it's some of the most mature yet innovative and cutting edge hip hop you'll hear this year.

Mind-altering
It's very difficult to find words to describe this album. It's an epic science fiction space opera, a unique, unearthly soundscape that makes me ache with pleasure to hear it. If the Gods listened to hip hop in Valhalla or on Mount Olympus, they would be listening to this. It sounds futuristic, yet old as the dawn of the Universe. It is the sound of science. It is the sound of quarks colliding. It sounds disjointed, distorted, warped, but seems simultaneously to fit together perfectly, elements of beats and rhymes meshing together to create unimaginable new musical compounds. It is dirty yet pure. It is beautiful yet ugly. It must be heard.

The best album ever made
The cycle of music causes such things to happen. Those who once were the trailblazers become the establishment. So, while Public Enemy, De La Soul, Wu Tang Clan have all joined hip hops upper echelons, consequently their work has become less important. This transition allows for a new breed of hungry underground artists to come to the fore. Many will cite Eminem and even 50 Cent as the hottest prospects. They are not. Most of them appear to coming out of the ashes of the Rawkus label, but the brightest sparks of all are emerging from the red-hot Def Jux label. Take two of the most intelligent and gifted MCs to emerge for a long time and combine them with the hip hop world's most innovative producer and you end up with not only a remarkable hip hop album but, in this writer's opinion, the best LP ever made.

Vast Aire and Vordul Megalah introduce a New York that the listener may have forgotten existed after so many bourgeois releases by the likes of The Strokes. As early as three minutes into the first track, Vast Aire gives the listener an idea of the exactly how dire their situation is, "Boy meets world? Of course his Pop's is gone, what you figure? / that chalky outline on the ground is a father-figure." It is the grim position that Cannibal Ox find themselves in that dominates the album, on 'Stress Rap' they admit, "You love New York / But New York don't love you." A sample is played mid-way through the opening track reminding the listener that, "You are one of the few predator species that preys even on itself."

However, this isn't a cynical attempt at proving they are from some rough streets in an endeavour to add some B Boy posturing. Cannibal Ox describe themselves, and others in their position as 'pigeons', feeding off scraps of pizza crust. The metaphor is a fitting one for individuals in such a hopeless position. Despite the squalor surrounding them, Cannibal Ox find time for a little humour. Vast jokes that he "blows heads like that dead clothes designer." There's even room for some humorous self-criticism as Vast Aire admits, "oh s**t I said a word twice" and then starts his verse again on 'Raspberry Fields'. It's this kind of verbal dexterity that makes this the most breathtaking collective of rapping ever released.

Essentially this is an album about living in New York's underbelly, but scratch the surface and you'll find many more twists in the album. In fact, all but the most robust individuals will enjoy the let up in intensity. 'Ox Out Of The Cage' is perhaps the most traditional rap track on the album with it's "Ladies and gentlemen" opening. But if you think Ox will dumb it down, you're mistaken. Vast Aire spits, "I grab the mic like Are You Experienced / but I don't play the guitar / I play my cadence." Vast then delivers a sermon on modern day relationships on 'The F Word', "Don't take it personal, I like you a lot but I don't wanna lose what we got / but what we got now is friction / she tellin' me intimacy and friendship she ain't mixing." Elsewhere 'A B-Boy's Alpha' combines Freudian theories with street fighting over a beat reminiscent of a mangled carnival. While all the credit in the world should go to Vast Aire and Vordul for their amazing lyrics, EL-Ps sonic landscape is equally worthy of praise. From the siren that begins 'Iron Galaxy' through the outrageous stuttering beat that furnishes 'Vein' to the majestic guitar that soars as 'Pigeon' takes the album to its conclusion there is not a single misplaced beat or mediocre melody on the LP.

While the album proper ends with the wicked message of hopelessness that is 'Pigeon', the hidden track 'Scream Phoenix' points to a more fruitful future for the impoverished New Yorkers, "Famine, disease and senseless dying is done / pigeon bird got a breath left / heart beat no more / phoenix bird morph and we live off the G-force." Seventy-three minutes after the journey began, it comes to a fitting end. 'Scream Phoenix' is a message of hope for not only the listener but for Cannibal Ox themselves as the mindless and hopeless pigeons have transformed into noble phoenixes.

As New York regains its status as the home of music, this album is the perfect accompaniment to Ryan Adams, Yeah Yeah Yeahs and The Strokes. This is the real underbelly of New York, and 'The Cold Vein' is the best album to ever come out of the city. But it is more than that, it deserves to join the realm of 'Pet Sounds', 'Revolver' and 'Nevermind's, as an LP that is regarded to be not only sonically phenomenal, but also culturally important. It never will of course. But one can dream.... Sometimes five-stars doesn't do an album justice.