El-p is an awesome producer and rapper too.I know this is an instrumental album most the whole thing is but the fact is theres extras on it, and if you like the beats, and just can listen to nice beats without the lyrics for whatever reason, to rhyme over it, or just to relax and kick back, you can do either one.Check out Aesop Rock's new cd Bazooka Tooth.El-p is on there.

I picked this up at the beginning of June and it sat in my drawer since then. I finally listened to it today and was not disappointed. El-P is a very talented producer. His beats are really off the wall and entertaining. I don't normally buy instrumental albums but I figured I'd take a risk with this one (plus I noticed that Cage, Copy & Camu guest on the second disk). El is a great producer, that's not in question. But my whole thing with him is, I think he's a terrible emcee. Some of his verses are good and tolerable but the majority of the time I can't listen to him. I'm into emcee's that have real good flowing patterns and are easy to listen to. El-P is nighter of those. Half the time his rhymes don't rhyme and when they do its almost impossible to find where they connect. I really don't know why people paint him out to be the Messiah of Hip Hop. But if you're looking for an album full of insanely good beats pick this up (although I'm not promising you'll be able to rap over them if that's why you buy it).

"Fantastic Damage" was, in my eyes, a pretty good hip hop album that was as prodigious as it was impenetrable. The lyrics were mostly thoughtful, intelligent and clever and the beats were strangely beautiful in it's shattered, stutter-stepping, Blade Runner-esque manner. It's not the kind of experience the average hip hop fan weaned on P-Funk samples and bling-blinging can get into, but those who spend the time on it are justly rewarded.

"Fan Dam Plus" serves as a nice PS to "Fan Dam," but not neccessarily a Must Have. For your money, you get instrumentals of every song, the original version of "Squeegee Man Shooting," RJD2's remix of "Lazerfaces' Warning," and the unreleased "Dead Weathermen." You also get the "controversial" video to "Deep Space 9mm" (decent for a low budget video, but the only people who'd find it "controversial" are people who wouldn't normally be listening to El-P), a live performance and lyrics to the entire "Fan Dam" album.

The music on "Fan Dam" had a bad habit of outshining El-P's flow, so both the lyrics and the instrumentals are nice to have seperately to get the full picture. The live performance was decent, but not awe inspiring. The extra songs didn't knock me on my backside, but acquitted themselves well. El-P completists and rabid Def Jux fans will want a copy of this, but unless you loved "Fan Dam" you could probably live without.