Confrontation Camp: Objects In The Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear

The first time a rapper got the notion to front a rock band, the result was Ice-T's Body Count, an act better remembered for the controversy it created than the music it produced. Still, if you look at today's music scene, which is awash in rock acts that borrow liberally from hip-hop, it's clear that Ice-T was on to something. Maybe it's time for other rappers to give rock a try, and who better than members of Public Enemy, which once memorably teamed with Anthrax on a remake of its own "Bring The Noise" Confrontation Camp, a band fronted by Public Enemy's Chuck D and Professor Griff and the previously unknown Kyle Ice Jason, tries in earnest to work the rap-rock fusion from the other side of the equation, but fails to rise to the challenge. In the long run, Body Count was undone more by its reliance on poor, derivative metal than by the "Cop Killer" flap. Confrontation Camp runs into much the same problem on its self-produced debut, Objects In The Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear, taking the Korn/Rage/Limp Bizkit formula and adding very little. On Public Enemy's best work, from its debut through the brilliant but overlooked There's A Poison Goin On, the music always worked to elucidate Chuck D's raps, driving his points home with the unignorable urgency of a siren. Here, the music, provided by a group called Chaingang and turntablist DJ Lord, acts only to obscure, whether the songs address the lynching in Japser, Texas ("Jasper") or the destructive cycle of "Babies Makin Babies Killin Babies." It also doesn't help that, as a rock band, Confrontation Camp ranks well beneath The Rolling Stones, .38 Special, Kingdom Come, or even Body Count. "Brake The Law," for instance, consists of little more than the riff from Living Colour's "Cult Of Personality" played endlessly and badly. On the rap front, Griff's contributions are as negligible as you'd expect, while Kyle Ice Jason fails to distinguish himself against the cacophony. Which leaves only Chuck D, assertive and powerful as always, but this time bringing too much and too undistinguished a noise to make himself heard, earning points for daring but little else.