There's only one hip-hop artist Wil Wheaton could
ever collaborate with: nerd icon MC Frontalot, whose new Final Boss includes the blogger/Star
Trek
actor (and erstwhile A.V. Club contributor) rapping about shellfish. As always,
the over-the-top dorkfest makes for easy laughs; listeners don't have to get
the computer-programming references to find the shamelessness agreeable. From
gaming to grammar, Frontalot retreads the basics of geekdom, but also continues
Secrets From The Future's habit of sneaking in more serious subjects, from
voting-machine fraud to homeland security. That's a good thing, because the
targets of nerd-humor haven't really shifted much in the past decade, but even
when Frontalot, say, picks on Canada ("I'm mostly fine with you people, but
watch it / Canadia strikes me as unpatriotic") while sampling the country's
national anthem, it's all saved by slick production. Final Boss is, musically, fully
unembarrassing: The beats are big and the flow is rapid. To a
non-English-speaker, it would sound like a completely legit hip-hop package.