Pop and Jazz Reviews : Hard Corps’ Safe Mix of Metal-Rap

If Hard Corps were a TV show, the band would be a high-concept project--something that can be described easily in one line. All you’d need to know is that the group combines three white metal musicians with two black rappers and a scratcher.

At the Cathouse on Tuesday, the Nashville group took advantage of the natural chemistry of its rap-metal hybrid--the rhythmic thrust of the mating is easy to get swept up in.

But we already knew that from such landmark endeavors as Run-DMC’s venture with Aerosmith and Public Enemy’s pairings with Anthrax. Those efforts broke some ground; this one plays it safe, never stepping beyond the basic concept.

The group’s occasional practice of translating the rap concept of sampling to a live metal band is promising, but certainly it could be applied with more imagination than merely taking lines from the “Mission: Impossible” and “Perry Mason” themes. And doing a rapped-up version of AC/DC’s “Back in Black” is merely a “Walk This Way” rerun.