“Crossing The Line” opens the album with dramatic piano loops and samples of military orders delivered through a speakerphone. At just over a minute long, the intro serves the purpose of bringing you into a strange and uncomfortable World where Armageddon seems imminent.

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“Game Boy Predator” is an all out audio assault on your eardrums. It’s the first clue as to what lyes in store for us over the next twelve tracks. Bigg Jus raps about violent video games and other fantasy Worlds he’s explored on popular game consoles. His flow is off key and without any coherence. The music is digitalised and full of wacky game samples. It feels like this track was made for online shooting games as the anger behind it is palpable.

“Black Roses” is a noticeable departure from the hectic opening of the album and is easily the most ‘pleasing on the ear’ Bigg Jus track. Horns open the song with a real foot tapping melody, it sounds and feels like Hip-Hop. It has much more focus than the chaotic nature of the rest of the project. Jus’s lyrical style is similar to Jedi Mind Tricks and other hardcore underground acts. “Ripping apart the periodic table in search for the god particle” he spits with considerable venom. It represents the stream of consciousness style of rapping that Bigg Jus considers his forte.

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“Ripping apart the periodic table in search for the god particle”

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He’ll cover George Orwell, the pyramids, Vegas and the Government all in one verse, his choice of language is not relatable but more formal and overly depictive. “Advanced Lightboy Activation” continues in a similar vain, although it is darker and Jus raps in a monotone robotic voice about Nazi’s and parasites. It feels as though he is being prophetic through his abstract lyrics, perhaps warning us of a futuristic World where all is lost. If your not used to far out concepts and ideas through hip-hop, it’s likely you’ll be left cold at this point. There’s no attempt made to introduce catchy hooks or easy listening beats, this album instead looks to challenge it’s listeners.

“Empire Is A Bitch” like the rest of the LP deals with corrupt governments and apocalyptic warnings, Jus is more direct in dealing with his criticisms of the U.S. in this track, and the beat is more old school hip-hop in that it samples an obscure soul record. “Food For Thought (Shit Sandwich)” packs the sort of punch you’d expect from a Wocka Flocka Flame record, of course Jus possesses far more lyrical ability than Wocka, but it still has a dirty south feel to it, despite the content never differing from his other tracks. The one thing you could not accuse Jus of is being inconsistent with his subject matter. This is essentially a concept album so theres no real separation of ideas expressed over the 13 songs.

“Hard Times For New Lovers” does take an unexpected twist musically though. As an instrumental only piece, it’s slowed down, chopped up intro bursts into life with a more soulful vibe as the track progresses. It doesn’t let you settle for long however, as you’ll be constantly hit with an avalanche of new sounds. By the end, it descends into what could only be described as schizophrenic electro with glitch hop drums. “Machines That Make Civilization Fun” is the title track of the album. It’s patient beginning uses the ticking of clocks to build anticipation, eerie vocal samples add to the atmosphere, then Jus comes in rapping about vampires with a flow that’s almost unlistenable. If Biggie was famous for bouncing on records with his voice, Jus is happy to completely ignore the rules of flow and delivery.

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Personally, I found it too messy, I can’t really picture an occasion where I’d want to stick this track on, as the only mood it put’s me in is one of confusion. It may serve a purpose as part of the conceptual nature of the album, but at over five minutes long, it wears thin pretty quick. There’s no surprises to be had, so after the first minute you’ve heard pretty much all it has to offer, I was hoping to be rewarded for sitting through it (perhaps Jus would deliver an incredible verse at the end?) but I was just left feeling very flat. Track 9, “Polymathmatics Restore Balance Out Think A Savage Trick” sounds like Death Grips at their most grueling. The drums on this descend into anarchy and Jus can be heard rambling all sorts of abstract poetry and battle cries to the masses. It’s short and sweet but theres no let up in the aggressive nature of the music. Track lengths speed up considerably in the bridge to the grand finale.

“Redemption Sound Dub” consists of loud shouting and incoherent lyrics that freeze, glitch and repeat. I’m not sure if you could describe this particular piece as hip-hop, it’s more industrial noise meets heavy metal vocals. If that’s your passion then this album certainly delivers, constantly upping the stakes in being more experimental with each track. It doesn’t work for me, but I can at least appreciate the efforts to push the boundaries. “Samson Op-Ed” is more pleasing on the ear than the audible bloodbath that proceeded, Jus sounds like a preacher as he rattles off a verse about the situation in Palestine. It brings us back down to planet Earth with samples of some U.S. news clips, it is far more relatable (content wise) than the other tracks on the album. Jus’s lyrics often have to be read alongside being played in order to understand what he’s saying, but that’s not so much the case with “Samson Op-Ed”, which also features a pretty engaging drum ‘n’ bass beat.

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“Kush Star Catalog” is a two minute track with plenty of off key raps and shouting, he even borrows a little from ODB’s style of half-sung, half-rapped track vocals. However, he doesn’t possess any of ODB’s sense of humour. And that’s one of the thing’s I feel is most lacking from the album. Jus is so determined to switch his vocal delivery every two seconds, that he doesn’t realise that in doing so, he becomes predictable and one dimensional. Which I presume was the opposite of his intentions. I would have liked to see some ‘MF Doom style’ witty cultural references to balance out the steady stream of repeated content. He didn’t so much have to differ from the political themes, but rather inject some life into them by exposing more of his personality. In short I feel theres a talented emcee in Bigg Jus somewhere, but he’s almost blocking us from getting to know him.

You won’t find many hip-hop fans who will say he can’t rap or doesn’t posses a high standard of lyrical ability, but it’s hard to be stirred emotionally by his music when such rigid structures are placed on his rhyming style throughout every track. When an artist takes the daring step to ignore the rules of conventional music, he or she should remember the golden rule: less is often more. By sticking to a chaotic style of rapping, the shock factor is quickly diluted. “Respective Of F1 Dub” ends the album with a visit to the race track. Car noises whizz past whilst glitch-hop drums provide the only source of recognisable music. It is an instrumental piece and exists to allow the mind to wander and come down from the dark experience the listener’s just come through.