Reviews:

On Operation: Doomsday!, Zev Love X of early '90s 3rd Bass prot KMD adopted the iron mask of autocratic Fantastic Four arch-nemesis Doctor Doom and promised "the total destruction of 'rap' as you know it." Fair enough; the sonic imprint MF Doom coaxed forth from the sleepy mountains of Latveria-loping beats, slice-and-dice b-movie audio collage, understated jazz flourishes and slanted and enchanted rhymes-was as instantly indelible as the ill crate-digging aesthetic Madlib applied to his Quasimoto project. Like Operation: Doomsday! and MF Doom's subsequent collaboration with craggy compatriot MF Grimm, Take Me to Your Leader is more than just a stone's throw away from the terra firma of mass consumption-minded hip-hop; it's positively antithetical to the rules of the game.

MF Doom still has Stan Lee-Jack Kirby comics on the brain: he ignores past ignominious defeats and hooks up with Mr. Fantastik on "Anti-Matter," the record's interstellar show-stopper. Aside from a brief verse on "The Final Hour," it's the only time Doom leaps off the throne to take a turn on the mic. Take Me to Your Leader really belongs to the story of King Geedorah, the three-headed dragon who squares off against Godzilla in Godzilla vs. Monster Zero. Some of Doom's usual associates have adopted new identities straight from Japanese monster movies to guide King Geedorah's struggle to come to terms with the human race; some, like Hassan Chop, break the fourth wall and glide across the Doom's breaks without paying much mind to the record's overarching theme. Much like Dan the Automator and Kool Keith's tricked-out Dr. Octagon collaboration, the infinitely deep Bernard Hermann-by-way-of RZA sinister soundscapes of "Fazers," "Monster Zero" and title track ensures that Take Me To Your Leader has an instant totemic weight that trumps 99% of everything that has come out of hip-hop's underground in the last decade.