Living Off Xperience

Four years on from Filthy America...It's Beatiful, and mere months after Jadakiss' Ignatius and Styles P's Styles David: Ghost Your Enthusiasm, the LOX reconvene for their fourth proper album. While it's neither quite as unified nor as strong as those solo projects that immediately preceded it, Living Off Xperience leaves no doubt that the MCs as a unit remain relevant. They're actually most in sync when they get a verse from Benny the Butcher and a hook from Westside Gunn on "Think of the LOX," a bare-knuckled track with a tense Large Professor beat worthy of a psychological thriller. "Bout Shit," with Sheek Louch and guest DMX on especially high alert, is as sharp and militant as anything the group recorded two decades earlier. ~ Andy Kellman