Masters of obvious irony (they're Caucasian) and subtle contradiction (ever met an "old" teenager?),
YBT's debut got dissed all to hell. Or at least I thought it did. And while there's no way this new disc is going to make me forget
House of Pain or
The Beasties, it's much better than I would have guessed, a fact that probably has as much to do with contributions from The Bomb Squad,
Keith Shocklee, and
Grandmaster Flash (!) than from
YBT themselves. The best tracks, like "Tap The Bottle" and "Plead The Fifth," explode with a neck-snapping ferocity, but
YBT can't keep up the pace. Still, aligning themselves with such def(t) producers as
Shocklee is a wise move, because now the slack moments aren't so obvious and annoying, and the disc has an engaging style without sounding stylized. ~ John Dougan, Option