i think it's important to note, here and now, that this review is essentially saying that it's a great heavy record. they mess some shit up - 2 album with def jam, his grasp on "apologize" and "criminal" is a little shaky - but it's a really positive review. there's nothing particularly negative... matter of fact it's a little weak that they couldn't have sync'd up the grade&review and thrown some "best new music" on album so all the collegiate hipsters would know to buy it.

This is the important bit i think...:

>But despite the massive ensemble cast, Black Thought is still
>the core of the record and the well-worn accusations of him
>being anti-charismatic feel largely false here. Most of his
>great moments come on tracks which feature a lot of other MCs'
>great moments, and after getting overshadowed on "Rising Down"
>(can any MC make the subject of global warming into a dope
>lyric?) he comes out swinging for the rest of the record. On
>"Singing Man", even with P.O.R.N. portraying himself as a
>vividly realized school shooter and Truck North putting
>together a disturbingly evocative characterization of a
>suicide bomber, Black Thought's depiction of an African child
>soldier justifying his violence ("13 year-old killer, he look
>35/ He changed his name to Little No Man Survive") is both
>sharply written and unsettling. His delivery is a bit more
>varied than you might expect, too, particularly when he's
>rapping about getting underpaid like he's got a clenched jaw
>in "I Will Not Apologize" or sweating his way through a
>pills-and-stress panic attack on "I Can't Help It". And when
>he's turned loose on a hookless lyrical exhibition, Black
>Thought is nearly unstoppable; it's scary the way he blazes
>through the one-take assault of "75 Bars (Black's
>Reconstruction)", throwing out endless Big Daddy Kane-level
>proclamations of untouchability ("My hustle is long, my muscle
>is strong, my man put the paper in the duffel I'm gone/ Y'all
>still a light year from the level I'm on/ Just a pawn stepping
>right into the head of the storm"). The abrupt way it ends, it
>sounds like he could've gone on full throttle for another two
>hundred bars if someone hadn't taken a cleaver to the tape
>reel.

yeah that's right. start admitting you were wrong all along. looks like pitchfork decided to look past jokey lil wayne metaphors this morning for their lyrical breakfast.

big ups tariq. hopefully we'll be seeing more of this