North Mississippi Allstars – Electric Blue Watermelon: Screwed and Chopped EP / 2005 ATO / 6 Tracks / http://www.nmallstars.com / http://www.atorecords.com / Reviewed 23 November 2005

With the wah-wah pedal approximating a set of human vocals during the opening to “Stompin’ My Foot”, there seems to be a heavy blues-rock feel to the track that is immediately broken by the inclusion of a very artificially-sounding type of scratching, done by DJ Jimmy D. Eir presence is heravy throughout the disc, and to be honest this presence is not necessarily perfect. What ey really likes doing during tracks like “Stompin’ My Foot” is doubling the drum-beat; this causes a stutter-step that will have listeners reaching for the CD player thinking that the disc is skipping. Some of the slowing-down of the vocals really works well in the context of the CD, but Jam Master Jay ey is not.

In DJ Jimmy D’s defense, there is a groove that occurs much later in “Stompin’ My Foot” that individuals like Mike Jones would be proud of; this does not necessarily erase all of the weakness that is shown during the beginning of the track, though. “No Mo” has DJ Jimmy D really give the Allstars a David Banner treatment; honestly, just listen to “Cadillac on 22s” to hear what exactly I mean. I really wish the quote on the press sheet – that DJ Jimmy D is “the Michael Jordan of screwed and chopped” instead used Terry Bradshaw. This is because when DJ Jimmy D is on, ey is on but when ey is off, lordy ey is off. A number of tracks later on during this EP has slightly less offensive tweakings of the Allstars’ sound, but some of these tricks are unexplainable. For example, what use is there in adding level upon level of distortion to a track, when all it does is diminish the sound of the band?

Where there is a nice co-existence between the original sound of the Allstars and the modifications done to it by DJ Jimmy D is “Goat”; there seems to be a sludge-rock sound given thhe band due to the changes that the DJ makes. However, the activist spirit is a little too strong in this track as the track devolves into noise with the stop-start sound given to the track in-between the choruses. Overall, screwing and chopping the Allstars is a very hit or miss occasion; methinks it might just be fitting to keep the original sound that so many individuals love.

Top Track: Goat

Rating: 4.2/10

[JMcQ]