February 5, 1999

Whitey Ford Sings The Blues

The songs are tempered with a palette of non-hip-hop colourings the folksy overtones of single [B]'What's It Like'[/B], for example and framed in spartan, acoustic guitar, giving [B]'Whitey For

6 / 10 Less top of the morning, more the dead hours after midnight, 'Whitey Ford Sings The Blues' is the solo debut of Everlast, former leader of Boston-Irish homeboys House Of Pain. While such crimes against humanity as pissed-up anthem 'Jump Around' remain unforgiven, the artist formerly known as Erik Schrody is showing signs of repentance.

For while House Of Pain dealt in the worst kind of close-combat hip-hop, 'Whitey Ford...' shows distinct signs that a soul lingers beneath the beer-boy rhetoric. A brush with mortality in the form of a near-fatal heart attack midway through recording (documented on 'Painkillers') has seen to it that this is an album with a conscience, an album that moves beyond a mindless drunken lurch towards unconsciousness.

The songs are tempered with a palette of non-hip-hop colourings - the folksy overtones of single 'What's It Like', for example - and framed in spartan, acoustic guitar, giving 'Whitey Ford...' an identity somewhere between the backwoods balladeering of Beck and the macho-free rhymes of Jurassic 5.

A couple more explosive tunes wouldn't do any harm, but at least this shows that behind the boneheaded bullshit, even homeboys get the blues.