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Everlast - Love, War And The Ghost Of Whitey Ford
| Allmusic |
| Ten years after he relaunched his solo career with the "roots rap" album Whitey Ford Sings the Blues, former House of Pain leader Everlast has succumbed entirely to the contemporary alt-rock blues. His 2008 release, Love, War and the Ghost of Whitey Ford, is more in line with the work of G. Love & Special Sauce, Keb' Mo', or Popa Chubby than it is with any hip-hop act, save the cover version of "Folsom Prison Blues," which comes with an "Insane in the Membrane" backbeat thanks to producer and Cypress Hill member DJ Muggs. The track seems out of place on an album so dark, swampy, and disgusted with both society and self, but it's the kind of sweet relief that's called for after being pummeled by the death threat junta "Kill the Emperor" or driven to crimes of passion by the manic "Anyone" (as in "I'll kill anyone for you"). By the time "Naked" rolls around with its Emperor's New Clothes metaphor and equally overdone "The rich get richer/The poor get poorer" hook, it seems the songwriter has more venom than ideas, but this 17-track downer works well enough with some effort and trimming. It's earthshaking when Everlast's rich, rough baritone meets the plodding, gargantuan gospel of "Everyone," while highlight "Die in Yer' Arms" brings the Black Snake Moan atmosphere to downtown club culture as it lustfully drools all over the dancefloor. The war-torn "Letters Home from the Garden of Stone" towers above it all with its helicopter noises plus chilling tale of life on the front lines, and both "Stone in My Hand" and "Weakness" are redemption anthems that will satisfy sinners looking to be saints. They are the target audience and -- along with the Everlast faithful -- the ones who will find this heavy, rap-free album rich and rewarding instead of desolate and ponderous....full text |
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| Popmatters |
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It may seem like a long shot. But with the economy in shambles, the presidential election hinging on metaphors about lipstick and pigs, and people angrier than they have been in decades, maybe what the world needs now is more Whitey Ford. Everlast, also known as Erik Schrody, is counting on it. For the first time since his 1998 album Whitey Ford Sings the Blues, Schrody has recorded as his alter ego Whitey Ford again. Largely leaving behind the acoustic guitar accompaniment, Everlast hits hard with Love, War and the Ghost of Whitey Ford. In this case, Whitey Ford seems to be taking dead aim at politics in America. In “Kill the Emperor”, he makes repeated references to the price of oil, Hurricane Katrina and the new Crusade. The message is more Immortal Technique and less House of Pain. Not that Schrody has ever been just a radio rapper. His merging of acoustic and electric guitar with rap was ahead of its time. “Weakness” sounds like we’re catching up with the cast of characters off Whitey Ford Sings the Blues, and the story has only gotten sadder. The cover of “ Folsom Prison Blues” shows either a lighter side of Everlast or a lack of self-awareness, as the sample noise repeated throughout the track is clearly the same as in his biggest hit, House of Pain’s ”Jump Around”. “Stone in My Hand” is the best of what Schrody does. It works as a threat or a metaphor for the centralization of power. He has clearly had enough of the passive political society that America has become and is making a demand that we each do something with the stone that’s in our hands. The same can be said for the first single from the record, “Letters from the Garden of Stone”, a letter written as a last testament of a soldier. It has an authenticity to it that few in the genre can get away with. When Shrody sings about life at war, it is easily to believe that he has been there....full text |
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| Courant |
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Everlast's first album in four years begins with a pair of tracks that carry the whiff of strong ideas past their sell-by date. Opening with a brassy flourish, the rapped "Kill the Emperor" might have been a fist-waver back in the Bush-bashing days of yore; now it's like the last fanatic left shouting at an "Impeach the President" rally. And Johnny Cash's iconic "Folsom Prison Blues," cleverly spiced up with a familiar sample from House of Pain's "Jump Around," is still fun — but would really have been revelatory a decade ago, when the Man in Black re-emerged as an outlaw godfather to hip-hop. The rest of "Ghost" is more richly produced and rocking than past Everlast. Regardless, it largely settles into the familiar furrow he's plowed since his 1998 smash "What It's Like": hardscrabble, blue-collar stories set to a shuffle equal parts hip-hop, folk and blues....full text |
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