Vordul Mega, Megagraphitti

Megagraphitti is a record with another record looking over its shoulder: Cannibal Ox's The Cold Vein. That freakshow 2001 album is where most of us first heard of Vordul Mega (a.k.a. Megilah) and his partner, Vast Aire. Each had an out-there flow, full of deadly surrealism, perfectly paired with dense electronic tracks by Def Jux supersvengali El-P. The two rhymed more at each other than with each other, but damned if it didn't sound like hardcore glitched-out paranoid fun.

But that's been it for Cannibal Ox. Both its members have done solo work since then, but none of it has lit the world on fire. So it's a relief that Megagraphitti finds Vordul Mega as hungry and freaked-out as he was seven summers ago. "Trigganomics" with what might be Mega's personal manifesto: "Mega-apocalyptic/ Scriptures of living /Spittin', twistin', and sippin 'liquors/ Gifted misfits in the mist/ Straight lyrics that are halfway spinnin 'in different positions." Vordul always sounds like he's freestyling off the top of his head, but that head is a dark and mysterious place; the title track tells us how he is out representing for Amadou Diallo, "knowing us n—as is nothing but targets." He spins an entire sociological web of ghetto pain over a sad beautiful soul loop on the stunning "Hattori Hanzo." But he's got so many feelings that he's suddenly throwing out hotness props to Alicia Keys and Keyshia Cole on "Beautiful."

Vordul invites along some guests here, and co-conspirators like Tommy Gunn and Billy Woods are usually right in the pocket, but it's always clear who's in charge. Some of that authority is ceded, though, on the tracks that feature Vast Aire; the CanOx mini-reunion finds the pair getting right back into it on "AK-47" and "In the Mirror." (Best line of the record: Vast Aire chuckle-growling, "I thought we broke up!")

Megagraphitti is strong like a bodybuilder and twice as slippery, and renders the whole Cannibal Ox nostalgia thing moot: there's no need to dream about the heights of 2001 hip-hop when we've got a perfectly excellent 2008 right here in front of us.