This came out in 1999 – or at least that’s when I got it. Here’s what I said about it back then (with some minor editing):
Who says you shouldn’t play with fire? It sure hasn’t done this pyrotechnic New York rap crew any harm.
Indeed, Arsonists’ explosive 21-track debut is a smoking groove from beginning to end, blazing a trail between the ominously smouldering menace of Wu-Tang Clan and the incendiary cartoon violence of Eminem or Insane Clown Posse. Building a musical fire with layers of beatbox snares that snap, crackle and pop like kindling amid big fat logs of bass, this Latino hip-hop quintet proceeds to fan the flames, tossing off strings of red-hot verbal fireworks — many, if not most of them devoted to fire — that detonate in the air like Roman candles. With this much firepower, you know they won’t be a flash in the pan.
