hat is it about the Mr. Dumile, the metal fingers villain? Not since Outkast has there been a hip-hop artist with an innovative signature sound that is universally adored by rap purists, backpackers, and infrequent visitors to the genre alike. There's no doubt that the tragic, storied history and myth plays a part. A car accident claiming the life of his brother and fellow producer, Subroc, and the crippling and imprisonment of MF Grimm led to the demise of Dumile's criminally overlooked group, KMD. Despite successfully reinventing himself years later as the mysterious masked marvel, MF Doom, financial discrepancies have strained relations between him and his crew, the Monster Island Czars. Despite all that has happened, Doom continues to perfect his particular brand of eccentric production and lethargic, yet confident flows.

Under the Godzilla villain moniker, this album serves as, according to Doom, Geedorah's alien perspective on humans. Besides the incensed, cataclysmically tinged battle raps, more substantial topics including human evolution, personal hardships, and interracial tensions are all visited. While Doom himself only raps on a handful of tracks, the multitude of guests (hailing from the Monster Island Czars and forward-thinking Atlanta outfit, Scienz of Life) surprisingly do not detract from the album. Each MC holds his own, feeling confident in the soundscapes that Doom crafts. Considering that his production style is as domineering as it is remarkable, this is no easy feat.

While the beats for KMD were in the vein of the UMMAH's non-superficial integration of jazz and hip-hop, Doom has since deviated into his own world of incidental music, b-movie and cartoon samples, 80s glossed-over hard rock and AM-radio easy listening. On "Fastlane", grandiose strings perfectly clash with a cheese metal solo riff. Combine this penchant for combining unlikely sources with an insistence to juggle the beat in the middle of songs, forcing the MCs to switch the delivery to accommodate. On the previously released "No Snakes Alive", a laid back beat finds itself rapidly increasing until exploding into a frenzied flurry, only to repeat the process. While at times overwhelming, the experimentation generally pays off in spades. Between tracks, skits are transformed into stand-alone instrumentals with an attention to detail that will appease any cut-and-paste aficionado. These inclusions help further thrust the listener into the mega-monster concept while not wearing thin after a few cursory listens. Tracks like "One Smart Nigger" help shed light on the topic of separating the demonized black man’s art from the culture that spawned it as well as any wordsmith could.

Short and sweet, the album clocks in at 42 minutes, never wearing out its welcome. Essentially, this is a concise, concentrated version of the much vaunted Operation: Doomsday. The only minor caveat for embracing this work applies to hardcore fans who might be disappointed with the amount of already released material. With this album being the first of at least three other projects to see the light of day by winter, Doom should be fully receiving the accolades that he's deserved since the release of Mr. Hood. In his own words, "Render unto Geedorah what is Geedorah's."