Review
Mickey Avalon and Eli team up on “Ultra-Violence”, a dark, funny outlaw story set to a breezy, guitar-led beat. The track pairs a story of small-town recklessness with a refrain about taking what the world will not give you.
“Ultra-Violence” is a short crime story in song form: two young men with nothing to do, a borrowed truck, a shovel and a getaway. Its title borrows a word made famous by A Clockwork Orange, but its tone is closer to a country outlaw ballad told by a rapper.
Genre and Mood
This track combines hip-hop delivery with alternative rock and roll and a light electronic sheen, and its mood is intense, dark and rebellious. Icon vs. Icon heard it letting “some breezy summer swagger loose”, which is exactly the tension: the story is grim, the music is easy.
About the Artists
Mickey Avalon is the Californian rapper Yeshe Perl, born in 1975, whose songs often deal frankly with drug use and with his life before music; his 2006 debut album on Interscope produced the single “Jane Fonda”. Eli is Eli Meltzer, the Bay Area rapper and producer better known as Smoov-E, whose first major production credit was Avalon’s 2017 album Teardrops on My Tombstone. Speak of the Devil, released on 17 July 2020, was produced entirely by Smoov-E.
Song Summary
The song opens on its refrain, the idea that nothing in this world is free and you have to take it, sung in the voice of someone who smells of gasoline and captains the losing team. The verses then tell the story of Old Pete and Jimmy, two young clowns in an old, slow town who go out with a shovel looking for trouble. Between the verses a call-and-response passage echoes every line, and the refrain returns after each chapter like a shrug. The Legends Will Never Die review described it as touching on how nothing is free “over an instrumental with a jangly guitar hanging during the verses”.
Sound Breakdown
Intro: Haunting Atmosphere
The track starts with its refrain, setting the moral before the story, over the guitar-led beat.
First Verse: Raw and Gritty Lyrics
Avalon tells the first chapter, the jangly guitar hanging behind him, as Pete and Jimmy set off in the truck.
Chorus: Explosive Energy
The refrain returns, short and repeated, the line everyone remembers.
Bridge: Reflective Intensity
The call-and-response passage slows the story down: each line is sung and then echoed, a moment of reflection on lives that feel like they are passing by.
Final Chorus: Chaotic Climax
After the last chapter, the getaway, the refrain comes back one more time, unchanged, as if the story had taught nobody anything.
Concepts in Focus
The hook of Ultra-Violence is its refrain, built from simple, repeated phrases that frame the whole story. It arrives before the first verse and after every chapter, so it works like the chorus of a folk ballad: the narrator keeps returning to the same bitter conclusion while the story moves on. Listen to how its repetition makes the boys’ choices sound inevitable.
Between the verses and the refrain sits a passage of call and response: each line is sung and then echoed by a second voice. In gospel and soul, call and response creates community; here it sounds more like a mocking chorus, or a conscience repeating what the narrator would rather not hear.
Overall Vibe
“Ultra-Violence” is intense, dark and rebellious under a light, swinging surface. It is a story song first, and its humour is as black as its title.
Conclusion
With “Ultra-Violence”, Mickey Avalon and Eli Meltzer make a small outlaw ballad for the twenty-first century: a refrain you can sing, a story you would not want to be in, and a production that keeps its smile throughout. Speak of the Devil was Avalon’s fourth full-length album, and this is one of its most vivid stories.
Lyrics
The full lyric is not reproduced here. In outline: a refrain about smelling of gasoline, a landlord who will not leave the narrator alone and the conviction that nothing is free; three verses following Old Pete and Jimmy from boredom to a shovel-swinging robbery that earns them forty-eight dollars and a postcard, and on to a car chase in which Pete leaves the police in a cloud of dust; and call-and-response lines about life passing by and pretending not to be alone.
