Jedi Mind Tricks - Servants in Heaven, Kings in Hell (Babygrande)

When listening to a Jedi Mind Tricks album, you can always expect two things: Vinnie Paz’s gritty, multisyllabic delivery and Stoupe’s lush, epic production. With Servants in Heaven, you can expect no less. As always, Stoupe makes uncanny use of instrumental samples, producing beats that are dark, edgy, and eerily reminiscent of haunted houses, medieval dungeons, and bloody torture chambers (all in typical Jedi Mind Tricks fashion). Much like his Babygrande labelmate Immortal Technique, Vinnie Paz gets political with songs like “Uncommon Valor: A Vietnam Story” and “Shadow Business,” replete with obligatory Mumia Abu-Jamal references and guerilla politicking. But the gritty-voiced lyricist is at his best when he’s at his most personal and least violent. In “Black Winter Day,” Vinnie Paz spits three verses of confessional lyrics that we’ll hopefully hear more of in future JMT releases. For JMT fans, Servants in Heaven offers a consistent (although somewhat standard for the duo) delivery of beats and rhymes that’ll have you bopping your head. For the rest of us, the album leaves us wanting a bit more from Vinnie Paz, whose lyrics can grow tiresome halfway through the album.

– Abe Ahn