The beauty of hip-hop, as it reaches ever-higher levels of cultural significance and societal approbation, is that it still remains a storyteller's medium. Even the most textural backdrops are always based around human voices saying human words. Where rock bands of various stripes head farther and farther out into the realm of poncy abstraction, hip-hop narrows its scope. The best MCs-- save those meandering, fine-art fans in the Anticon camp-- are driven by precision, detail and narrative skill. But however weird the backing track might become, there's always a person up front, speaking.

What divides the underground from the mainstream, then, isn't so much the level of experimentation as the choice of narrational tone. Where the can-you-top-this tower of mainstream braggadocio is bound to eventually topple over, the rapidly surfacing regional scenes that compose the alternative maintain high levels of heavily personal weirdness or a degree of honest, searching levelheadedness that's astonishing to hear in the hyperbolic world of popular song.

All Natural-- MC Capital D and DJ Tone B Nimble-- clearly fancy themselves a fairly traditional battle-rap combo. None of the band's post-rocking labelmates pitched in ambient marimba soundscapes on Second Nature; most of the production sounds like a more obvious Wu-Tang, or veers into Native Tongues-style jazz suites. Fitting in with all this straightforwardness, Capital D and his various compatriots sling verses about how good they are at rapping-- especially in light of how crappy you and your sucka friends are. And able as they are at this kind of stuff, there's an added bonus involved: All Natural can't hide how smart they are.

Aside from the various introspective asides sprinkled throughout the tougher tracks, plenty of songs here take up issues of note. "Vegetarians" is about avoiding stupid conflicts, while acknowledging the tricky temptations of manliness. Elsewhere, the band takes up issues of class, race, and how fucked up rap is in the '01. Most extraordinarily, Capital D takes a good, long time to address a topic that the grime-obsessed freestyle union usually shies away from: it's a quiet, ruminative paean about how good it actually is to be alive.

That very quality, though, sometimes gets the band in trouble. All Natural's utterly unassuming nature keeps them from stretching too hard, allowing them to retread stuff any hip-hop fan has heard elsewhere. There's nothing wrong with hanging out in the background, perfecting a craft, and letting the world make of it what it will. But when a group's lyrical engine is this flexible, it's a shame that the beats themselves don't stretch as far as they might. Still, like the old Greil Marcus-penned adage says, sometimes it's enough for music to remind you that there are still people in the world you might like to meet.

-Sam Eccleston