...And Then There Was X

New York'sDMXis yet to make it big over here and seeing as he's the only artist to have two albums - 'It's Dark And Hell Is Hot', 'Flesh Of My Flesh Blood Of My Blood' - debut at Number One in the US Billboard chart in the same year, we're sure he's really concerned about this. He doesn't much need us, then, but theoretically we shouldn't discount him.

Forget the stars -look at the gutter, that's his decree. More succinctly, this is known as the "gutter shit", DMX's riposte to the legion of rap giants who've abandoned the real world and entered the platinum-plated, bullet-proof portals of da playaworld. Obviously, he's not the only MC to turn his back on the opulent lifestyle, but he's in a more select club when it comes to MCs who've done so without reverting to the cuddly, cutesy old skool. And really, there's nothing cuddly about the sound of DMX.

Woefully, it is in fact the dispassionate sound of dogs fighting, engines rumbling, neighbours arguing, glass smashing, alarms clanging, weapons discharging (of course!) and it's the sound of all this happening at the same time in the same miserable street. Complemented by DMX's often savage, tonsil-tearing mic style - Busta Rhymes resembles Kiri Te Kanawa by comparison - and you have some very uneasy - plus largely appalling - listening on your hands.

The absolute nadir, 'Comin' For Ya', is like a numbskull, mutant offspring of Black Sabbath's 'Iron Man': lumpen and heavy-handed, possessing the rhyming skills of a three-year-old and the funky joie de vivre of a Russian nuclear power station in mid-winter. This, absurdly, is followed by a prayer to the Lord, 'Prayer III', in which DMX seems as determined to praise himself as the big bearded one. What, you wonder at this point, is the USA on? And then you figure it's best not to think about that for too long.

Neither is it any great climb from the lows to the highs on '...And Then There Was X'. Sometimes a little light infiltrates his grey, hostile parish, with him rapping over semi-engaging samples. Yet mainly it's a case of DMX sticking to whatDMXdoesn't do very well, his grim tales sorely lacking panache. In the case of lumbering efforts like 'Fame' and 'What These B*****s Want', you wonder how they made it onto record. Let alone how they can possibly be the work of someone deemed a genuine Stateside big cheese.

Unlike many recent rap releases, this is not one to have you hollering that this is the future and that indie is dead. Not, in fact, one to ever play again.