You really can’t keep a badman down. When notorious rapper Ice-T first got together with guitarist and high school buddy Ernie C to coin their experimental fusion of hip-hop, hardcore and thrash, few could have reasonably expected them to still be raising the bar three decades down the line. However, Carnivore continues an incredible late-career renaissance that began with 2014’s Manslaughter, delivering another focused, uncompromising and downright vicious slab of street wisdom.
On the face of things, this album has much in common with its two most recent predecessors. Steeped in 30 years of metal evolution, the album veers between gore-drenched psycho attitude (No Remorse), breathless bangers (Bum-Rush), indulgently nostalgic callbacks (a no-frills cover of Motörhead’s Ace Of Spades alongside a rework of Ice’s own 1988 hit Colors) and rueful political commentaries (The Hate Is Real). It’s on the last of these that Ice most clearly shows his years, the voice that once yapped ‘Die, die, die pig, die!’ sounding worn down, asking, ‘How many more innocent people and kids gotta’ get killed by these police, man? / Then it’s always the victim’s fault / It’s some fuckin’ bullshit’.