Body Count - Murder 4 Hire (2006)^{Release ID: 7301}

After 1997’s ‘Violent Demise’ redeemed the band for 1994’s disappointing ‘Born Dead’, they go and once again follow up a great album with a lacklustre one, with this, 2006’s ‘Murder 4 Hire’. Oh Body Count... I see a trend forming here.

Granted, it was the bands first release in nine years, and besides having some new members, the recording was halted for a while after the death of original guitarist D-Roc, which no doubt probably made it a difficult album to finish. In fact, since its release, rapper frontman Ice-T has gone on to say that he “phoned it in” and didn’t really work as closely on this album as he should have done. Fair point, that.

But excuses aside, a shoddy release is still a shoddy release, and ‘Murder 4 Hire’ is a very generic and uninspired album. There’s just not really much that stands out, with the guitar riffs and vocals all seemingly copy and pasted from ‘Born Dead’, and a rather weak production that doesn’t give any of the music the beefy crunch it deserves. Plus, the band have opted to leave out skits between tracks again, which gave their albums a much needed, over-the-top, tongue-in-cheek sense of humour on past releases, but here, it just sucks the fun out of it all.

Leaving us with an uninspired band, taking themselves too seriously for their own good.

However, there are one or two decent tracks that are undeniably Body Count, and that’s ‘Down in the Bayou’ and ‘Relationships’. While these are far from the bands finest moments, they do prevent ‘Murder 4 Hire’ from being a complete disaster. But overall, this album is another disappointment from a band that can’t seem to release two good albums in a row. Hopefully the trend will continue and their next release will make up for this one...