By Daniel Paiz

The first A Week’s Worth Album Review of 2025 starts out with a collaborative album from CZARFACE entitled Everybody Eats! This collaboration merges two groups, as CZARFACE’s 7L and Esoteric are sans Inspectah Deck. Cue the creation of Stress Eater, as Kool Keith steps in for Deck and joins the Boston duo.

The result of this collaboration is part debut for Stress Eater, part returning to the CZARFACE formula of Boom Bap and alternative sounds with intriguing lyrics. There’s a lot of scratching and vocal sampling, and it requires a few listens to decide what stands out.

What Stands Out

This album has some very distinctive beats and production that help drive the whole project. There doesn’t really feel like there’s a grand concept, rather a collection of songs that dig a bit into society today and how what we consume slash eat impacts our lives and minds. Kool Keith adds a nice nostalgic flair, but rhyme-wise Esoteric does the heavy lifting for this album. The guest features aren’t very many, but Mega Ran does an admirable job of delivering quality via their guest verse on “Aladdin’s Castle”. 

The opening and closing tracks do a tremendous job of setting the bar for the other 11 songs. Production on this project rivals CZARFACE’s previous installments. “Aladdin’s Castle” and “Top Men of Rap” are likely the most complete songs on this album. “People Want Sugar”, “Here’s Some Homicide”, and “Rocket Science” are also memorable tracks. Kool Keith and Esoteric have an interesting trading of verses on “Rocket Science”.

Esoteric ends their back and forth via an exceptional picture in the following rhymes:

Make sure that message you will relay, I’m a week away from Tattooine, I’m floating in space, corroding your face, with the greatest of ease, I stay on track like the greatest of skis, my steez is Major League, while your steez is fake and somethin’ make believe…

—Esoteric of CZARFACE  

Esoteric nonchalantly delivers the above bars, painting graphic images as he meanders through his verse. If you weren’t listening to what is actually said, you wouldn’t catch the violence involved, which CZARFACE does such a good job of doing. The pop culture references also wander back and forth between Star Wars and sports, a signature trait of this emcee. This is one of many examples bridging different interests seamlessly, frankly something not a lot of artists do.

One other staple of CZARFACE projects are the vocal samples utilized in different tracks. The opening of “Aladdin’s Castle” sets the scene perfectly for the theme of this track. News reports are scattered as well to shift the direction of the verses, and it’s subtle enough where the listener might not initially notice. This song is a love letter to old-school arcade games and does so in a very contained snapshot sort of way. Sounds included are reminiscent of these old cabinet games. Mega Ran’s rhymes also inspire imagery throughout his verse. News broadcast samples also bring up the conundrum of electronic games versus the more analog cabinet games that arcades usually favored. 

Final Verdict

Stress Eater is less Boom Bap than a typical CZARFACE album, but not by much. Sometimes CZARFACE is full-blown Boom Bap. Sometimes this group is at their best with that throwback sound, and when very specific references get made. Comparatively, Stress Eater is kind of fine-tuning their niche still. Despite that, this project is a sonic storybook when it comes to the beats and samples.

Overall, this is a solid contribution to the discography of CZARFACE, despite technically not actually being a CZARFACE album. Stress Eater is still finding their way. However, the rhymes on this tape don’t surpass previous projects.

Kool Keith isn’t Inspectah Deck despite delivering some interesting rhymes. Stress Eater is meant to be a new trio of 7L, Esoteric, and Keith. It’s an interesting character for the main entity to battle, and ideally down the road Stress Eater and CZARFACE will have a face-off, similar to the collab projects with MF DOOM and Ghostface Killah.