[Editor's note: at the request of the artist, the name DOOM, the album title and all track titles from this album appear in this review in capital letters; and the album title has a full stop after the 's'. It's not that we've lost control of the shift key or are trying to shout at you, honest.]

Generally speaking, the rapper now simply known as DOOM has two type of fans: those who see him as a hero of the late-'90s indie rap scene and are vaguely aware of his history, and those who fondly remember him as Zev Love X, one third of early-'90s heroes KMD. The latter set copped KMD's debut album Mr Hood and loved joints like the Brand Nubian-featuring Nitty Gritty; couple of years later they also marvelled at the then futuristic-sounding and unbelievably dope jump-off single, What a Niggy Know (and its equally brilliant, completely different remix), then patiently waited for the album, Black Bastards to arrive, not realising it would become one of several mid-'90s albums that they had to wait until the late '90s to hear. The story became the stuff of golden age legend: the cover to Black Bastards, which featured a Sambo character being lynched, saw it effectively banned, then the tragic, untimely, death of DOOM's younger brother Subroc in a car accident forced an extended hiatus.

Zev Love X re-emerged around the same time Black Bastards began to be bootlegged, now trading as MF DOOM, an identity patterned on the Marvel comics villain Dr Doom. His Operation: Doomsday album made waves, and under the aliases Viktor Vaughn, Madvillain (with Madlib) and DangerDOOM - a collaboration with a pre-Gnarls Barkley Danger Mouse - he became a hero to the indie hip hop scene. But here he seems to be trying to reconcile the different eras his maverick career has spanned.

One of the first things those who remember him as Zev Love X may get excited about in this latest manifestation is the inclusion of Kurious Jorge, now simply Kurious, who made a memorable appearance on Black Bastards' Smokin' that Shit. He pops up alongside Slug and Mobonix on SUPERVILLAINZ, the highlight of a very dope album. The track, which features all kinds of musical twists and turns, also features De La's Posdnous as character P-Pain (yes, he uses autotune) and Prince Paul as Filthy Pablo, so it's not just DOOM who's getting complex with the personas.

The guest spots don't stop there. While Raekwon makes his presence felt on YESSIR!, a track based entirely on ESG's perennial breakbeat staple UFO, DOOM has better chemistry with Ghostface. On ANGELZ he references Alex, the DOOM-produced tune off More Fish, by saying "this ain't a Hardy Boys mystery, this is real shit." Does this mean we're any closer to the long-mooted Ghost/DOOM album, Swift and Changeable? Fingers crossed.

LIGHTWORKS will be immediately familiar to anyone who knows J Dilla's Donuts. Dilla also produces the album's opener, GAZZILLION EAR. That and tunes like BALLSKIN, the lovely, laid-back ABSOLUTELY and RAP AMBUSH allow DOOM to talk his shit over some above-average boom-bap. The various producers (Jake One, Madlib and DOOM himself among them) rarely stray from mid-tempo soundbeds, but this is a different kind of aesthetic: the music is often like a cross between the phat beats of the early '90s when he began his career and the more experimental, industrial production that was a feature of the late '90s indie hip hop scene. It's all about ominous organs rather than floaty, jazzy piano samples; short, dramatic trumpet stabs looped over and over rather than long, drawn-out horn samples (for better or worse, this is not the kind of music that sexy girls dance to up in the club).

As seasoned DOOM-watchers will have come to expect, it's all very random lyrically. The most random reference on the album has to be about old school comedy Ernest Goes to Camp (erm... anyone else?) but there's plenty more where that came from. The seemingly intentional provocation of BATTY-BOYS plays around with a Batman metaphor but comes close to the bone in terms of homophobic insults. It'll be interesting to hear DOOM's interpretation of the track.

Towards the end of the album a supportive phone call from Bumpy Knuckles confirms DOOM's ghetto pass is not even close to being revoked. The storied Freddie Foxxx doesn't give those shout-outs to just anyone: it's a measure of DOOM's time in the game, and the dopeness of this album. Long-time fans won't be disappointed and any new listeners will be pleasantly surprised by a consistently high-quality record.