Dave Dub And The Sutter Cain Gang

Peanut butter and chocolate. Guitars and distortion. Sex, drugs and rock'n'roll. Some things in life are just meant to work together. Then there are ideas that may sound great under a drug-induced haze, but come across with about as much appeal as doing shots of ketchup-laced milk or sticking various appendages out the bus window when sober. Mind Police wavers dangerously close to those "what the fuck?" instances, thanks to an oddball union of '80s-inspired hardcore blasting away under hip-hopper Dave Dub's stream-of-consciousness banter. For tunes like the title track and "Casualty," the concept is simply amazing, eliciting comparisons to Gil-Scott Heron doing his thing over old school Bad Brains. Unfortunately, for every one of those awesome moments, jazz-influenced horns and a general cacophony rant behind Dub's bantering without any sense of direction or point. Experimentation is a wonderful thing, but in the case of a hip-hop/punk crossover, Mind Police shows glimmers of possibility, maybe even potential, but that's about it.