Black double-vinyl reissue with poster of MF Doom’s first solo gem, Operation: Doomsday, remastered from the original 1999 version on the legendary fondle ’em label, so side a is listed as ‘side zero’, side b is ‘side one’, and so on. Underneath his mysterious metal mask, MF Doom hides the cachet underground legends are made of. This is ridiculously dope, in a bizarro Ol’ Dirty Bastard kind of way. Doom sounds either high or drunk on most of the tracks, his self-produced beats are gritty, and his rhyme styles are almost indecipherable. On arguably the best track, Rhymes Like Dimes, Doom weaves some pointed lyrics through his abstract wordplay, spitting ‘only in America could you find a way to earn a healthy buck / And still keep your attitude on self-destruct.’ Doomsday features female vocalist Pebbles the Invisible accompanying the masked rhyme avenger on his journey to denounce wack MCs, while on ? he trades hot verses with former Columbia artist Kurious Jorge. Doom’s avant-garde ghetto-rhyme philosophies take even more intentionally weird twists on Tick, Tick… where he and guest MC MF Grimm’s flows warble over a rhythm track whose tempo speeds up and slows down continually. The comic-book themed skits, many of which include snippets of dialogue from Marvel’s Dr. Doom series, will help take you deep into the mind of an MC who is as otherworldly as they come. And in today’s bland commercial Rap universe, Operation Doomsday‘s left-of-center beats and rhymes are the perfect remedy.