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Nothing scrambles the brain like Tomorrow Right Now's "Hot Venom," and no track has lyrics that hit as hard as Now, Soon, Someday's "Win or Lose You Lose," but the album maintains a consistency that neither of those releases can claim.
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If parts of "Shock City" shudder under the weight of seeming too cool for school, much credit is due Beans for being one of the producer/MCs desperate to stretch out the rubbery boundaries of the genre.
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The album fails mainly in its inability to set itself apart; for a Warp release it’s dull, Beans isn’t enough of a rapper to carry the show by himself, and the beats feel like they would have been interesting if they didn’t just remain stagnant through pretty much every track.
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As hit-and-miss as its 2003 predecessor.
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MagnetWhere the smart rap of Antipop Consortium came off as quick and cutting, Maverick just seems remote. [#66, p.86]
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It’s stripped down, tough and raw, but a world away from any gangsta pose – this is more inward facing, an attempt to expand the horizons of hip-hop, striving for a new rap language, with a free flow sprawl of image and polemic.
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His beats continue to be hypnotically bare-boned, old skool synth assault platforms, over which he then reels you in with his ceaseless syllabic slurry, his lyrics almost irrelevant as his ridiculous flow blurs everything into an inescapable rhythm. At top speed this approach yields irresistible amounts of adrenaline, the downside being that slower tracks lose the listener in drifts of abstraction.
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Q MagazineHis reluctance to engage, ego issues and occasional sexism speak of a vanity as large as any of the major-label players he opposes. [Nov 2004, p.117]
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The WireThis album does suffer a mysterious drop in its energy levels midway in. [#249, p.50]
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UncutHere, Beans returns to his roots. [Nov 2004, p.106]
User score distribution:
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Positive: 4 out of 5
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Mixed: 0 out of 5
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Negative: 1 out of 5
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MattDMay 30, 2005
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davidgMar 9, 2005beans is amazing, shock city maverick is an instant classic
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ChrisJan 27, 2005I Liked it alot. This was a nice album by the Former Anti Pop Consortium MC Beans. IT is very fresh and he does great on almost every track.