3 out of 5

Produced by: DJ Nu-Mark, Salaam Remi, Scott Storch, Bean One, Exile

Label: Interscope

It’s tempting to rate this lower out of derision: while J5 weren’t necessarily underground, they bridged the gap, and were certifiably “cool” and wicked talented in word flow and beats.  But the J5 of Feedback are tired, delivering radio jams and predictable rhymes.  It can’t be selling out because they already had a name for themselves, but it’s still a staid attempt to go “bigger,” and even as a non-fan of Jurassic, the crowd baiting wrankles.  “This ain’t my Jurassic 5,” the complaint would go.

But that’s the gut response.  Because if I hadn’t heard of the group previously, while Feedback is by no means a bad album, and is more rightly a good album, especially as compared to its then radio peers – our lyricists are still plenty capable of finding non-four letter ways to express how great they are, and though the by-then departed Cut Chemist’s flourishes are missed, a bevy of guest producers and Nu-Mark still keep things flowing with a mix of modern styles and the expected Sugar Hill Gang co-opts – the inspiration behind this stuff is just clearly way past its expiration.  Bravado fueled Quality Control; attempts at deeper meaning elevated Power in Numbers.  On Feedback, most of that is gone, and we spend the album trawling over tired tropes and forever talking up a game that, for better or worse, was already played out in the past.  And the Allmusic review has a much more thorough vetting of the sounds-like beats than I could ever manage, but the end result is not a single track that sounds like one the group outright owns.

If this were a debut, you’d note the slick deliveries and on-point production, and probably be curious as to what would follow.  But as a sequel to two time-tested albums, it makes little impact.