Gravediggaz Albums (4)
'Nightmare in A-Minor'
Release Date 4/9/2002
Tracks 19
Label Empire Musicwerks
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What The Critics Say
After several years of inactivity, Gravediggaz returned with Nightmare in A-Minor. Unfortunately, this is the group's last album, first of all, because the more well-known half -- RZA and Prince Paul -- had left and, second of all, because Poetic, one of the two remaining group members, passed away in 2001 after fighting colon cancer for two years. Though Nightmare in A-Minor showcases Poetic and Frukwan no doubt trying their best to make the album on a par with the group's first two albums -- 6 Feet Deep (1994) and The Pick, the Sickle & the Shovel (1997) -- it falls short of the mark. More than anything, the departure of RZA and Prince Paul leaves Gravediggaz sounding a little weaker than you'd expect. Poetic and Frukwan carry all of this album's weight, and with 19 tracks filling this album to the brim, that's a lot of weight to carry. Thankfully, the duo have producers LG, Diamond J, and True Master to help out with the beats, but even that's not quite enough. Still, even if Nightmare in A-Minor doesn't measure up to the group's earlier albums, Poetic's unfortunate passing does make it somewhat of a novelty, particularly for longtime fans of the artist. ~ Jason Birchmeier, All Music Guide
'The Pick, the Sickle and the Shovel'
Release Date 1/1/1997
Tracks 15
Label V2
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What The Critics Say
Between Gravediggaz first album, 6 Feet Deep, and the second, The Pick, the Sickle and the Shovel, RZA became the most influential producer in hip-hop, as his productions for the various Wu-Tang Clan side projects established his distinctive, skeletal style as rap's cutting edge. So, it's a little surprising that The Pick doesn't showcase RZA, even though there are several tangential Wu members on the disc. Instead, the production team of Poetic, True Master, Fourth Disciple, Goldfinghaz and Darkim mastermind the sound of the album, which is light-years away from the violent horrorcore of 6 Feet Deep. The Pick has a layered, textured surface, filled with inventive, unpredictable samples that create a hypnotic web. Appropriately, RZA, Prince Paul, Poetic and Frukwan have smarter rhymes this time around, exploring social problems instead of wallowing in comic book gore. At times, the album's momentum sags, but overall, The Pick, the Sickle and the Shovel is a quantum leap forward for Gravediggaz. Unlike its predecessor, it's an album that reflects its creators' intelligence. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
6 Feet Deep is a sick joke. A lethally great and a ghoulishly comical one, but a deranged and sadistic prank nonetheless. Eschatological, gruesome, paranoid, and obsessed with death (both imposing and experiencing it), the debut from eeeeevil supergroup Gravediggaz lands somewhere in the nexus at which the bizarro universe of legendary producer Prince Paul -- who oversees the whole project while wearing the mask and wielding the shovel of the Undertaker for the occasion -- crashes headlong into RZA's dingy, farcical New York City, a haunted, inverse Oz where graffiti meets science fiction meets splatter flick in an unholy alliance that finds Freddy Krueger fiendishly pursuing the turf gangs out of Walter Hill's The Warriors down 125th and Elm Streets. Throw in a few crazed variations on Medieval torture techniques, a few too many midnight kung-fu screenings, and a few fantasies of bodily damage so giddily, demonically cartoonish that they would make Wile E. Coyote lick his lips with mischievous envy, and you have this brilliantly strange, whimsically jagged horror film in song (critics unofficially dubbed the style horrorcore) with its maimed and gnawed tongue firmly planted in cheek. If you can stomach the buckets of lyrical blood spilled herein, there is no end to the gory highlights, from the running-in-place nightmare of "Nowhere to Run, Nowhere to Hide" to the psychotically nauseous angel-dust high of "Defective Trip (Trippin')" to the willfully objectionable "1-800 Suicide" and self-destructive "Bang Your Head," all of them terribly catchy. As a bonus, 6 Feet Deep is sure to offend the sensibilities of all middle-aged family-values crusaders and conservative-type politicians -- vampires of a different sort -- who aren't in on the joke. Overseas, the album was titled Niggamortis. With its combined allusion to mortality and example of wicked wordplay, it would have been even more apropos. Whatever it goes by, though, the album can be resurrected again and again without losing any of its devilishly good potency. ~ Stanton Swihart, All Music Guide
