by
Public Enemy
- Record Label: Self-released
- Release Date: Jun 30, 2017
- Critic score
- Publication
- By date
-
The WireSep 1, 2017Nothing Is Quick In The Desert shows them in fantastic form, sidestepping those laboured moments of musical correctness that made 2015’s Man Plans, God Laughs so patchy, and focusing on the kind of ear-popping chaos that made so much of 1994’s Muse Sick-N-Hour Mess Age so uniquely addictive. [Sep 2017, p.55]
-
Jul 12, 2017That's not to say there's no "Boom and Proud" anywhere to be found on Nothing but it's not "Shut 'Em Down" level like those old Bomb Squad albums from the 1980's and early 90's.
-
Jul 12, 2017Celebrating their 30th anniversary, there’s still plenty of life in the elder statesmen who once started a musical revolution.
-
Jul 12, 2017Public Enemy’s message hits hardest when the lyrics remain open for listeners to step inside. A couple presidential putdowns are enough (no need for another “Son of a Bush”), and the small handful of times the album stumbles are when the focus narrows to micro grievances like calling out Kanye and Kim for being “a spectacle instead of spectacular” (“Yesterday Man”) or pointing out the negative effects of social media on millennials (“SOC MED Digital Heroin”).
-
Jul 14, 2017Nothing is Quick in the Desert--its 14th studio recording--flexes the group's stadium-rap muscle. This was an album specifically designed to be played live, and some of the subtlety and nuance that informs Chuck D's most incisive raps is missing.
-
Jul 12, 2017For all the missteps, there are gratifying moments littered throughout. For the most part, the production, spearheaded by David “CDOC” Snyder, is patched together smartly and with regard to tradition.