Album: Saul Williams

Saul Williams, WICHITA

Saul Williams's Rick Rubin-produced debut album from 2001, Amethyst Rockstar, was a grandiose mélange of influences and styles, which drew critical plaudits but never really managed to find an audience. This time, he's come prepared with his own pigeonhole, referring to Saul Williams as "industrial punk-hop", which suggests an avant-rap style akin to Public Enemy or The Disposable Heroes Of Hiphoprisy. And certainly, there are echoes of those groups' didactic manners in "Talk To Strangers", "Grippo" and "Telegram", all of which cast a disillusioned eye over the gun-scarred wasteland of modern hip-hop. "Perhaps we should not have encouraged them to use cordless microphones," Williams muses in the latter, "for they have walked too far from the source, and are emitting a lesser frequency." It's set to a Bad Brains punk-metal sample, just one of several left-field musical strategies that also include a piano chorale by System of a Down's Serj Tankian, keyboard contributions from Isaiah Owen of neo-

Saul Williams's Rick Rubin-produced debut album from 2001, Amethyst Rockstar, was a grandiose mélange of influences and styles, which drew critical plaudits but never really managed to find an audience. This time, he's come prepared with his own pigeonhole, referring to Saul Williams as "industrial punk-hop", which suggests an avant-rap style akin to Public Enemy or The Disposable Heroes Of Hiphoprisy. And certainly, there are echoes of those groups' didactic manners in "Talk To Strangers", "Grippo" and "Telegram", all of which cast a disillusioned eye over the gun-scarred wasteland of modern hip-hop. "Perhaps we should not have encouraged them to use cordless microphones," Williams muses in the latter, "for they have walked too far from the source, and are emitting a lesser frequency." It's set to a Bad Brains punk-metal sample, just one of several left-field musical strategies that also include a piano chorale by System of a Down's Serj Tankian, keyboard contributions from Isaiah Owen of neo-proggers The Ma\rs Volta, a sample from Chrome's epochal Half Machine Lip Moves, various synths, clunking marimba and a thinly disguised variant of the "I Wanna Be Your Dog" riff. "Industrial punk-hop" just about covers it, though whether that will prove any more enticing than his previous effort remains doubtful.