Cage

With a barrage of lurid rhymes, NYC’s Cage spits the sort of storyboard rhymes on Hell’s Winter that sound ripped from an underground graphic novel. The dreary warzone backdrops come from El-P, RJD2, and Blockhead, and their nimble, diesel-charged compositions help drive Cage’s reckless imagination over the edge. The foolish inclusion of Dead Kennedy Jello Biafra in “Grand Ol’ Party Crash” detracts from an otherwise stinging indictment of Bush’s senselessness, but no flaws can be found in the newsreel narrative of autobiographical parental drug abuse in “Too Heavy for Cherubs” and the grisly girlfriend death yarn in “Subtle Art of the Breakup Song.” Cage sells uncomfortable moments like the neighborhood weed vendor, and some prime stuff has just blown into town.