Run-D.M.C.

Album number five from the pioneering Queens duo, Back From Hell finds Run-D.M.C. in an awkward position. Released in 1990, many heads had stopped checking for them, and it would be another three years before they returned. Not a bad record by any means, but tame compared to their earlier work. "The Ave." and "Faces" are pretty tight.

Struggling to appear relevant next to Ice Cube and the Geto Boys, Run-D.M.C. has shot itself
in the foot. This groundbreaking rap group's fifth album is a bitter disappointment because
it's so obvious – or, as rappers Run and D.M.C. would now put it, so motherfuckin' obvious.
Gratuitous obscenities abound on the record, and they sure don't make Run-D.M.C.'s new
tales of street violence and urban injustice any more convincing. Brandishing gu... More >