Part of the Insane Clown Posse's epic, multi-album Dark Carnival series, The Marvelous Missing Link (Lost) represents the third joker card in the second deck, or at least part one of that joker card, with The Marvelous Missing Link (Found) being part two.

In other words, this conceptual continuation is hardly the place for newcomers to jump in, and it might not be the reentry point for the casual fan, either, as frequent collaborator and producer Mike E.

Clark is missing.

So is humor, since this joker card is decidedly dark.

"Apocalypse" sets the tone with lyrics like "A man is on fire and runnin' down my block/I put him out of his misery, and blast him with rock," while "Neighbors Are Fighting" is an especially brutal example of conflict and chaos with a looped cranium crack of the baseball bat driving home the cut's tight beat.

"Confederate Flag" has nothing good to say about the "rebel rag" the song is named after, and even if the rock-rap duo deliver plenty of worthy social commentary among all this bad news, it is still a wealth of bad news, negative outlook, and mall brat nihilism.

Without Clark's ridiculous and rich productions, The Marvelous Missing Link (Lost) is just too dark and too dour for those outside the ICP fan club.