Metascore
67

Generally favorable reviews - based on 16 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 10 out of 16
  2. Negative: 0 out of 16
  1. An inventively arranged mixture of blues, hip-hop, strings, folk and metal, 'Eat At Whitey's' is like Fun Lovin' Criminals' cameo in The Sopranos: by turns, flash, atmospheric, melancholic, and very masculine.
  2. Building on Whitey Ford's organic folk-pop rap, Eat at Whitey's develops the songwriter's street-style troubadour fixation even further. This time, there's more singing than rapping, and his gruff vocals actually sound stylish, especially on the provocative "Black Jesus" and the memorable "Black Coffee."
  3. But for all his self-consciously moral concerns, Everlast doesn't preach; his hard-assed urban observations speak for themselves.
  4. And though it's as good as, if not better than, its predecessor, the album's not bowling people over, either. Maybe its rap-folk hybrid is just too much of the same. Or maybe we just can't identify with the first-person "Black Jesus" like we can the third person of yore. Because maybe this album's greatest strength is exactly what's holding it back: the narrative.
  5. Whenever Everlast lays back and spins stories and tall tales on his own, his blend of folk, rock, blues, rap, and pop culture clicks.
  6. An eclectic, intermittently rewarding album of first rate re-creations. But re-creations are all they are, down to Everlast's voice, which is beginning to sound like Redd Foxx's.
  7. 80
    The result (smells like the blues, bubbles like funk-rock, burns like hip-hop) is some strange new kinda rock 'n rhyme stew... Eat At Whitey's is like nothing else that's happenin' right now.
  8. Spin
    70
    A far more sonically consistent and textured work, cushioned in Americana, drenched in soul.... But there's no urgency to this album, which stops looking out at the world and settles in for some serious celebrity navel-gazing. [Nov 2000, p.195]
  9. With his raw, raspy baritone voice, he paints vivid, usually empathetic pictures within an instrumental context that is rife with refreshing live beats and sharply drawn guitar and keyboard lines.
  10. 70
    His gruff voice may have earned him comparisons to Tom Waits and Captain Beefheart in the past, but let's face it: Everlast is treading awfully close to Neil Diamond territory here. Salvation, as always, comes in the grooves. Eat at Whitey's is instrumentally opulent, adding cushioned layers of percussion and vintage keyboards to the familiar blues-hop template that launched "What It's Like."
User Score
8.4

Universal acclaim- based on 37 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 31 out of 37
  2. Negative: 5 out of 37
  1. MarkS
    Mar 9, 2004
    10
    you just fall in love with the vibe of this cd
  2. stefyo
    May 9, 2003
    10
    like others said :one of the best albums,maybe it's the new style,the new sound.I can hardly wait 4 another one.Keep it on the same like others said :one of the best albums,maybe it's the new style,the new sound.I can hardly wait 4 another one.Keep it on the same direction,Mr.Ford(Everlast) Full Review »
  3. AndrewC
    Dec 13, 2002
    10
    this is one of the best albums that i have ever heard. can't wait for a new one.