Album Review: Unexpected Guests by DOOM

Daniel Dumile has gone by a slew of aliases over the years. From his humble beginnings as a peach fuzz-sporting Zev Love X to his current days as the pot-bellied DOOM, this elusive emcee/producer wears his musical schizophrenia on his sleeve like none other. Mind you, during those nearly 20 years, Dumile (pronounced Doom-uh-lay) has also taken the name of a Godzilla monster (the seven-headed King Geedorah) and two masked supervillains (MF DOOM and Viktor Vaughan).

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The early news of DOOM compilation Unexpected Guests positioned it as a field report from the indie MC's late-decade wilderness period, spanning a half-committed star turn (2005's Danger Doom collaboration with Danger Mouse) to this year's bullish return to form on Born Like This. And it is... except when it isn't-- "Rock Co.Kane Flow", taken from De La Soul's The Grind Date, actually finds DOOM doing something of a victory lap in 2004 after his essential triad of Take Me to Your Leader (released under the name King Geedorah), Vaudeville Villain (Viktor Vaughn), and Madvillainy (Madvillain).

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This year had such a nice redemptive arc for DOOM (most recently, of course, known as MF Doom): Beloved underground MC returns after bizarre hiatus, during which he paid impostors to stand in for him on stage, by releasing an excellent comeback album, Born Like This. So it’s a shame that last glimpse we’ll likely get of DOOM this decade is a slight rarities mixtape that collects 17 tracks of less-than-stellar repute of varying states of release (7-inch tracks, production work, etc.). Unexpected Guests is said album, and the latter word should really come underlined, because apart from a handful of verses and an annoying “Doom is as evil as ever” sample, he’s less a part of this than he was his recent live shows.

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