If Madvillainy hadn’t been delayed until the following year, MF DOOM’s 2003 would’ve seen the rapper-producer flexing on three different fronts under three different personae: the characteristic masked supervillain, the petty-criminal-as-mastermind Viktor Vaughn, and — most outlandishly — an adaptation of the Godzilla monster menagerie he briefly gathered in a crew as Monsta Island Czars, with DOOM as the hydra-head King Geedorah. While the whole squad eventually collapsed to infighting, it felt for a brief moment like an opportunity for DOOM to indulge even deeper in his more pure-punchline battle-crew tendencies, though there was still almost as much of the subtle melancholy and embattled resentment you could hear between the lines in his other work. Opener “Fazers” reps this best: it’s just well-timed joke after simple-yet-brilliant internal rhyme after inspired popcult reference, encompassing everything from comedic eyerolls at BET (“a lotta rap noise is annoying like Cita”) to one of the most perfectly deployed lyrical usages of the phrase “Yeah? And?” on record. But while DOOM drops a couple other one-verse wonders on here (with “No Snakes Alive” as the best of the remnants), his key contributions here are the beats — a grip of his choicest Metal Fingers selections that rank among his both his most infectiously strange (the hotlapping guitar-solo loop of “Fastlane,” the bombastic action-fanfare-meets-beatbox “The Fine Print”) and instant-classic resonant (the jazz-hop revival of “Next Levels”). And it’s in the service of a remarkable group effort, riddled with who the hell was that? surprises from artists who largely remain somewhere between cult-beloved obscurities and total enigmas. “Anti-Matter” features DOOM in rapport with notoriously mysterious affiliate Mr. Fantastik, who provides some top-flight boast rap for one of only two times he ever appeared on record, while Hassan Chop’s existential survivors’ sorrow on “I Wonder” and Trunks’ manic rapidfire-threat-slinging cameo on the minute-long “Lockjaw” are the kinds of performances that make also-rans feel like should’ve-wons.