Colorfully fantastical as a Jack Kirby two-page spread yet as to-the-core unflinching in the face of a hostile city as any finger-staining pulp novel, Cannibal Ox’s first album is a mood-altering substance in itself. Vordul Mega and Vast Aire enlisted Company Flow’s El-P to complete a portrait of NYC teetering between the waning crack years and its gentrified oligarch-ruled unreality, and all three of their voices — Vordul’s shellshocked, booming monotone, Vast’s taunting punchline mockery, and El’s cyberpunk-takes-the-J-train beats — embody a hip-hop homeland under siege from all sides.