Cementing An Image in E. Town

In the film "American Beauty," Wes Bentley's character, Ricky Fitts, films life from the viewpoint that some things are inexplicably charming.

E. Town Concrete's new album, "Made For War," is one of them, though it certainly is a lot heavier and abrasive than a plastic bag caught in the wind. Imagine a group of musicians in a room trying to figure out the best way to combine their love for early-'90s West Coast gangsta rap and hardcore a la H2O and Integrity.

Yep.

At first listen, any "reputable" music fan would have trouble declaring his or her love for "Made For War." E. Town Concrete has a set standard for their songs, with straight ahead hardcore or rock and roll interspersed with bouts of introspective hip-hop. What they do after that is not so standard.

E. Town has parts similar to everything under the sun, from Carlos Santana-style guitar solos to rap-metal choruses a la P.O.D. There is absolutely no doubt that this should be a recipe for disaster, but it isn't.

The key to this avoidance of calamity is that the music actually makes listeners feel good, not just about themselves, but about potential for humanity. Similar to the sentiments thrown out by seminal posi band Stretch Arm Strong, E. Town is clever, and funny enough to dilute the heavy topics they attack.

On "Do You Know What It's Like," E. Town plays on the Everlast hit, "What It's Like." Whether they play on it inadvertently or not is up for debate, but lyricist Anthony Martin broaches taboo topics without sounding preachy or like he's trying to shock like Eminem.

The song has a plethora of examples of what makes Martin a good writer, including his finest rhyming on the album, "fourth-grade kids can't read or write/ and all they ever see is Mommy beat at night/ they can't sleep at night/ they can't catch no Zs/ so what the f--k they care about the ABCs/ It's crazy kids in grades 1,2,3 trying to decide whether to be a B or C."

Martin's honest delivery is only improved when he moves onto what he feels is the cause of most problems: poor choices by politicians. After the flow about children, he raps, "Their stomachs are empty/ there's not enough MDs/ but we can spend billions chasing WMDs/ or we can just build a pipeline in the Mid-East/ and when the bill comes/ send it to me."

The beauty of "Made For War" is that it is composed of things like the interplay between "Do You Know What It's Like" and its successor on the album, "Blood," which is brutal hardcore in the vein of, coincidentally, Blood For Blood and Bury Your Dead.

More of the charm in "Made For War" comes across in the last track, "There Goes The Neighborhood," a cover of a song by Body Count, Ice-T's band. The description that comes with it in the liner notes is really endearing, and this is written without a hint of sarcasm. Seriously.

"Unless you're stupid, you know that this is a song originally recorded by the band Body Count. If you replace the word 'nigga' with 'wigger,' it becomes a song about how people think of us ... we hope you hate it," the liner notes state.

As the above details, E. Town Concrete has dealt with a lot of grief in the hardcore scene for sticking with their love for hip-hop culture. The underdog attitude they maintain is perfectly understandable, and it implores heavy music fans to grab on.

The band has an undeniable lure, though on one hand it demands a certain level of admitted guilty pleasure. "Made For War" is a good record, recalling ghosts of Public Enemy and Rage Against the Machine, but it definitely isn't for everyone.