Violent Demise: Last Days

Maybe Ice-T was trying hard to infuriate and offend when he put together Body Count's Violent Demise: The Last Days, but he should have spent a bit more time on the riffs and lyrics. Sure, "Interview," which features a vignette about a journalist being executed for dissing the band (gulp!), and "Strippers," which includes the scintillating chorus "Strippers, I want my dick sucked," are both disturbing, but the puerile prurience hardly obscures the group's second-rate songwriting. Throughout the album, Ice-T moans and barks above repetitive, second-hand guitar lines, and even when the rapper lambastes O.J. Simpson on "I Used to Love Her," he fails to say anything even mildly thought-provoking. --Jon Wiederhorn