ALBUM REVIEW: Everlast – Love, War & The Ghost of Whitey Ford

In case you haven’t been paying attention, since the days of House of Pain, Everlast started singing the blues, had a cup of day-old black coffee with Def Jam and an… “incident” with Eminem. He also formed one of those Rap supergroups that usually never make an album (La Coka Nostra – look it up […]

In case you haven’t been paying attention, since the days of House of Pain, Everlast started singing the blues, had a cup of day-old black coffee with Def Jam and an… “incident” with Eminem. He also formed one of those Rap supergroups that usually never make an album (La Coka Nostra – look it up later) but is still making sure to keep his solo career moving.Love, War & The Ghost of Whitey Ford is probably worth a look from any wayward fans Everlast already has but probably won’t attract any new disciples. He opens the album in MC mode on “Kill The Emperor,” a thinly veiled stab at Bush 43 that isn’t exactly revolutionary by now, but still has a decent beat. The raps resurface here and there, but he mostly sticks to Hip-Hop tinged Country Bluegrass.Perhaps as a transition, he then concocts a bizarre (and awful) cover of Johnny Cash’s “Folsom Prison Blues” by mashing it up with “Jump Around.” Your frat-boy friend that likes anything will probably bump this in his Wrangler for a few weeks, but anyone else would pretend it never happened. Things get better after that though, especially when Whitey sticks to the kind of gravely blues that his style is best suited to (“Tuesday Morning”).While not bad, a lot of The Ghost of Whitey Ford feels uninspired. Everlast doesn’t even sound terribly into his music so it seems unlikely that too many others will be either. Whether you heard his 1998 sophomore album or not, listening to that instead would be the better use of your hour.