In a perfect and just world, slam poet extraordinaire Sage Francis would be the great Caucasian conqueror of hip-hop. Instead, his brilliant Personal Journals album and his side group Non-Prophets reside in virtual obscurity while some platinum blonde you may know from the wrong side of Detroit has been reaping all the residuals. Hopefully Healthy Distrust, Francis's Epitaph debut, will change all that because Sage is one man whose talents need to be recognized.

First track "The Buzz Kill" starts things off with a bang, seemingly paying tribute to the science fiction-influenced openers on the albums of another up-and-comer in the hip-hop world, MF Doom. "Gunz Yo" is a brilliant self-deprecating satire with Francis rapping about the correlation between owning a handgun and his own stupidity. He spews venomous lines such as, "because I know that only stupid people increase the birth rates, I'm just about dumb enough to hold up a sperm bank." On the equally ingenius "Escape Artist," Francis raps about when he first broke into the medium of magic. Never one to hold back, he holds forth with the self-congratulatory lines, "I'm leaving the nay-sayers stumped like rain forests, after years of pulling rabbit ears out my pants pockets."

Unfortunately though, not everything comes up roses for Francis on Healthy Distrust. The two clumsy rock influenced collaborations scattered here are the ones that end up making this album simply good instead of great. The first is called "Sea Lion," a tune co-written and sung with Will Oldham, it falls completely flat in the choruses, and leaves the listener wishing that these two amazing talents could have come up with something more worthy of their combined gifts. The other rocker, the closing "Jah Didn't Kill Johnny," is an embarrassing tribute to Johnny Cash that is more laughable than endearing. Here, Francis comes off sounding like a two-bit Everlast, you just can't suck much worse than that.

Overall, Healthy Distrust is a solid mainstream introduction into the profound mind of Francis, but hip-hop lovers that have yet to mine Sage's back catalog are sorely missing out and should invest in it immediately.