mf doom

Daniel Dumile picked a good time to return. Watchmen fever has peaked, and rap's greatest supervillain-whether under the guise of MF DOOM, Viktor Vaughn, one of his many collaborative projects or newest moniker DOOM-just released Born Like This into a hero-crazy culture.

Born is Dumile's first proper solo LP since making records as MF DOOM and Viktor Vaughn in 2004, and it's his first as plain-old DOOM. The alias is fitting. The album's name is drawn from the Charles Bukowski poem "Dinosauria, We," which foresees the world as a nuclear wasteland that makes Dante's Inferno look like Disneyland (a sample of which, read by The Dirty Old Man himself, opens centerpiece "Cellz"). This common sentiment of the album-"common theme" would presume too much about the always mysterious Dumile's meaning-is further developed through spoken-word interjections and DOOM's learned, boasting, aggressive rhymes.

DOOM's flow is denser than uranium, often featuring multiple rhymes per line and a slurred syntax that makes words seem to end after others have begun. The lyrics are filled with non-sequiturs, aggressive put-downs and inventive boasts, stickily pronounced but not necessarily coherent. The lack of a central motif binding songs together might put some off, but verses like, "He work harder than a steam engine/Like John Henry/Turn dirt to dollas like Don Henley/Ugly but still get hollers like Ron Jeremy," entertain enough to stand on their own.

The allusive, amusing and imaginative lyrics are complemented by a strong slate of beats, highlighted by the late J Dilla's work on "Gazzillion Ear." However, DOOM handles most of the production work himself, to largely impressive results. Electric organ, horns, sirens, strings, drums and bass are all used liberally and effectively; the only qualm is that there isn't enough variance over Born's 17 tracks. However, when DOOM hits, it's hard: see "That's That" and "Cellz" for evidence of the best.

Strike while the iron is hot, it's said, and DOOM does one better: he brings the heat.