Czarface & MF DOOM - Czarface Meets Metal Face

Two masked villains, one record. Czarface, the trio of Inspectah Deck, Esoteric and 7L, had spent five years building a comic-book universe around their own invented supervillain when they finally joined forces with the most famous masked figure in rap. The result arrived in 2018 and it is the rare collaboration where both parties sound genuinely energised rather than obligated.

DOOM is everywhere on this record, not parachuted in for a guest verse but woven through the whole sixteen-track run. "Bomb Thrown" got the video, with Kendra Morris on the hook and a beat that lurches like a broken carousel. "Meddle With Metal" pairs the two rappers over one of the meanest loops the Czar-Keys ever built. "Astral Traveling" brings in Vinnie Paz, "Nautical Depth" hands a verse to Blacastan, and "Captain Crunch" and "Captain Brunch" bookend the album with a joke only these guys would run twice.

Caserta mixed it, Morgan Price adds flute and saxophone in places you do not expect them, and the whole thing moves at the clipped pace of a Saturday morning cartoon that has been left out in the rain. It became one of DOOM's last major full-length statements, which has given it a weight nobody intended at the time.

Pressed on black vinyl for Silver Age with Lamour Supreme's cover art. Essential for anyone building a DOOM shelf.