Rehab - Graffiti The World Review
Posted by Evocator Manes on 11.13.2006
Rock meets hip-hop again to decidedly average results.
Rehab Graffiti The World
2006
Attica Sound
6.0
A brief history of the band. Two artists, Danny Boone and Brooks Buford met in rehab, discovered a mutual love for music and background and decided to make music together. Much of this was covered on their debut disc, Southern Discomfort, an album mainly about being a junkie and alternately a white hip-hop fan in the South. Somewhere along the line, they wrote another album, called CuzWeCan, which would up being unreleased, probably because musicians and junkies tend to be notoriously unreliable persons separately, let alone together in the same person. Buford left, took some of the songs from the shelved second disc and released them on his solo disc in 2003, Straight Outta Rehab, which promptly disappeared itself. Danny Boone remained silent musically, until 2006...and that's probably quite enough history about a band that amounts to little more than a one hit (It Don't Matter wonder.
With Graffiti The World, it's now Danny's turn. There is some speculation that Brooks is also appearing on this latest incarnation on many of the raps, probably because the vocals are very, very similar to the ones appearing on the first disc. It's certainly possible, stranger things have happened than uncredited performances on albums in rock history...
The big difference between the first disc and 2006, Buford's contribution or lack of aside, is the introduction of politics into the subject matter. Everytime it appears, from the first song to the title track, the song suffers for it. While the music itself is somewhat solid, the songs are mostly uninteresting. There's no fire or passion anywhere on this disc. It's hollow, empty and soul-less, though rather well-performed. Imagine rapping somewhat like Eminem and Bubba Sparxx combined with the whole Everlast thing with elements of Linkin Park, if they had someone who could actually sing and you get the general idea. None of the songs are bad, but they are also not particularly memorable, either.
Artwork is mostly non-existent. The digipak is done in camouflage, with credits inside and that's about it. The band members are listed on dog tags and the entire band is in fatigues in a center shot, completing the military-esque motif, for whatever reason.
The 411: One of the more interesting songs on the debut disc, Sittin' In A Bar, which served as my introduction to the band courtesy of a 411mania Fan Forum Fixture named Voodoo Penguin, also appears here and is entirely aborted, which is more or less what this album does to the sound the band established on the first disc. This is more or less average, basically serviceable music, not one or the other, bad or good, just kind of there. The first disc is excellent and worthy of your dollar. This one is a release for big fans (aka those who have tracked down CuzWeCan and have Brooks' solo joint) only.
