Search - Public Enemy :: There's A Poison Goin' On

The first word you hear on There's a Poison Goin' On is "kill." It's a word delivered without much conviction and without any context; it's a word that makes you question whether the once-vaunted PE will ever be relevant again. Fear not. The rest of the first track, "Dark Side of the Wall: 2000," is a dense, trippy soundscape that shows Terminator X's production has moved with the times. There's plenty here to like: "Do You Wanna Go Our Way???" is PE's strongest single in almost a decade, owing both to Chuck D's passion and to X's backing track; "Crash" owes its piano-loop melodicism to the Wu Tang Clan's RZA and finds good use for Flavor Flav's incessant energy, as does "Kevorkian," which features a great stutter-step beat. But the barren "Last Mass of the Caballeros" quickly wears out its welcome, as does the too-busy-to-get-down-to-business "World Tour Sessions." But the highest praise that can be given here is that, though PE has moved with the times, they really haven't changed that much from the days of Fear of a Black Planet: when Chuck spits, "Shit! I'm the reverse of jiggy," you know he's speaking for the whole group. --Randy Silver