MF Doom’s new album is fucking ridiculous

The album dropped yesterday, and I’m live-blogging my thoughts here.

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MF Doom - or simply DOOM, as he now wants to be known - is back after a long hiatus, particularly for someone so prolific. One thing we know for sure: His new album Born Like This is performed by him, not a masked impersonator. The album dropped yesterday, and I’m listening to it for the first time here. I’ve live-blogged my thoughts below, borrowing Byron Crawford’s format.-

“Supervillain Intro” “Doom’s got a plan that’s gonna shake the heavens,” a WWE-voiced announcer tells us. Let’s hope so. He adds: “Time to get the feta!”-

“Gazillion Ear” One of two J Dilla beats here. It’s pretty hot, with kind of an eerie/haunted carnival/David Lynch vibe.-

“Ballskin” Now we’re talking! This Jake One beat is even hotter than “Trap Door,” from the Seattle producer’s 2008 album White Van Music, which Wikipedia tells me only sold 9,859 copies. That number makes me want to run myself over with a van (of any color). Wait, is this track already over?-

“Yessir!” The Raekwon joint, and he definitely doesn’t phone it in. Doom’s beat is really repetitive and annoying, though. He may have phoned it in, whatever that could mean.-

“Absolutely” The only Madlib beat here. I’m feeling it. In fact, this whole thing has a Madvillainy vibe so far. That can’t be a bad thing, right? I could do without the Cops sample at the end of the song, however. Is that honky policeman supposed to sound dramatic? Are they making fun of him? Why not just sample Reno 911, then?-