Swollen Members

This Vancouver group has been underground so long they're starting to sound a bit moldy. For one thing, the beats on Black Magic are generally indifferent to rhythm and texture, which is perhaps why emcees Madchild and Prevail spend so much time outrunning the tempos with their train wreck flows. On the bright side, with their true skool rhetoric and dark, apocalyptic visions of the future, Swollen Members manage to bridge the gap between Canadian hip-hop purists and trench-coat-wearing D&D types. Kudos.