Review: 'Dr. Dooom 2,' by Kool Keith

"Me and Kirk seen him at the hospital yesterday/I pulled the plug on Dr. Ock/He was good as the creator but a bunch of people didn't know/I beat him to death with rocks in a sock."

Kool Keith inhabits a universe all his own. Every single album comes out under a different moniker - Dr. Octagon, Black Elvis, Mr. Nogatco, one-half of the Diesel Truckers, the list goes on - and his rhyme style is about as different as it gets, a free-association brand of wordplay that goes heavy on the strange and gross.

But several of those albums have been marred by sub-par production. While Keith is no stranger to taking chances, there's a fine line between near-genius weirdness and just plain odd.

In his second record as Dr. Dooom (that's three O's), Keith sticks with the producer who's done most of his best solo work, Kutmasta Kurt, who gives the whole album a crowded, paranoid vibe that plays like a Bizarro version of Danger Mouse's production on "Mouse and the Mask," using understated bells and whistles to keep something sinister bubbling just under the surface.

The quote that opens this review is from "R.I.P. Dr. Octagon," where Keith bids goodbye to - or, rather, dispatches - one of his alter egos in various ways as Kurt pounds away with a dirty-gravel piano line and a whiny synthesizer. Outside of the metaphor, however, it's a big middle finger to the label that released 2006's "Return of Dr. Octagon" against his wishes as a series of outtakes and crappy remixes.

Distorted, digitized keyboards wash over "Mopped Up," a B-movie horn section drives "The Countdown" and longtime collaborator Motion Man shows up to drop some tongue-twisting hilarity over the dissonant pianos of "Surgery."

As a founding member of the Ultramagnetic MCs, the original abstract-rap group, Kool Keith has always been leading the way for experimental hip-hop and genuine weirdness.

But while some of his previous efforts have stumbled a little, "Dr. Dooom 2" is an excellent return to form and Keith's best record since the real, original "Dr. Octagon."

Listen to samples from "Dr. Dooom 2" at Amazon.com.

Sussex Countian