Body Count in Bloomington, MN

Divorced from the controversy that surrounded its release,
Body Count
's self-titled debut is a surprisingly tepid affair. Apart from the previously released
"Body Count"
(which appeared on
Ice-T
's 1991 album
O.G. Original Gangster
), the record is devoid of serious commentary, trading intelligence for a lurid comic book depiction of sex, violence, and
"Voodoo."
All of
's half-sung/half-shouted lyrics fall far short of the standard he established on his
hip-hop
albums. The controversial
"Cop Killer"
-- which is nothing more than a standard
thrash metal
chant -- stands out because it is one of the few tracks that doesn't rely on garish, cartoonish imagery. There's the saga of
"Evil Dick,"
which tells
not to "sleep alone." There's
"KKK Bitch,"
where he crashes a Ku Klux Klan meeting and screws the grand dragon's daughter. There's
"Voodoo,"
where a witch doctor cripples our hero with a voodoo doll. There's
"Mama's Gotta Die Tonight,"
where
offs his mother cause she's a racist. By the time the band works around to the power
ballad
"The Winner Loses"
and
is crooning "My friend's addicted to cocaine," it's unclear whether the record is a parody or a horribly flawed stab at arena
metal
. It would help if the band wrote riffs that were memorable or if they conveyed a sense of kinetic energy instead of tossing out their riffs in a workmen-like fashion. Perhaps
was intentionally humorous -- although the group's follow-up,
Born Dead
, suggests that it wasn't -- but in any case, the record was simply embarrassing. After
was pulled from the album, it was replaced with a bland version of
's
rap
classic
"The Iceberg"
recorded with
Jello Biafra
. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine