Take Two
Three Stars
The Christian rap duo Ill Harmonics varies the music on Take Two, its first album after its 2000 debut with An Octave Above the Original. Some songs boast car-shaking bass while others infuse Spanish guitar, maracas and trumpets, making for an atypical rap album.
The duo might be Christian rappers, but the songs don't shove God and Bible verses in your face. With a laid-back style, the band comments on faith and destiny and mentions God tactfully.
While the music behind the rhymes is inventive and fun, the lyrics often fall flat. Some of the defining characteristics of rap music -- sex, drinking, drugs and fun -- are, as to be expected, absent from the album. Most of the songs have a freestyle quality, and the lyrics seem pointless and don't branch out.
In fact, one lyric is laugh-out-loud funny -- beginning a song with "Playdough's the name." Singing "Playdough" with a hard-core, serious delivery was pure comedy in itself. But compound this delivery with the fact that it's impossible to take a guy named Playdough seriously.
Outkast they're not, but the creativity exhibited by Ill Harmonics is reminiscent of the originality produced by the southern rappers. Tempo and style vary throughout the LP, making each song different.