Loco

The Fun Lovin' Criminals inhabit a world of odd events. First poking the public eye with the Pulp Fiction-friendly "Scooby Snacks" and then watching as their unusual backwash of hip-hop blues, gangland loungecore, and ironic triple-entendre subsequently takes root in international soil only to have -- drat! -- Brixton's Alabama 3 get the Sopranos theme song was probably never part of the plan. This is, quite possibly, why Loco sounds continually exasperated with its own schtick. The FLC are leery and stupid on winking, vaguely sober growl-a-thons such as the Mighty Mighty Bosstones-indebted "Where the Bums Go" and resolutely self-pitying on "Half a Block," then bring it all back to the modus operandi of the album's offensive ad campaign with their hairy, sex-starved version of Eric B. & Rakim's "Microphone Friend," but if the FLC would remember why this stuff works despite its own stoned limitations, it would've resulted in something of larger import than this minor lesson in creative fatigue.