Record-Review: Tha Purple Tape & Prince Of Truth
Two long awaited LPs have finally surfaced:
RAEKWON Only Built For Cuban Lynx II
The first one had it all and came to the rightest of time, the third release in the first wave of WU-TANG solo efforts, directly after the stellar ODB shit, and it blew heads open like none other with its hard hitting crime stories, more wide-screen than even KOOL G RAP. Then Raekwon released two or three mediocre Albums, it was the draught that befell the whole Clan, the end of that period marks the death of the greatest entertainer EVER, the magnificent Ol Dirty Bastard. And ODBs death seems to have shocked the other Clan members back into producing worthwhile shit, as we´ve seen remarkable Solo-Albums from RZA, MASTA KILLAH, METH& RED in the past year as well as the VERY GOOD (grows with each listen) WU-TANG LP Chamber Music from early summer. Despite being produced by 13 individuals, OBFCL2 feels very homogenous, in fact its got much of the same feel as the original, I can put it this way: if the original is BLADE RUNNER in that it sports a multi ethnic mix in a postapo rainy athmosphere, surprising in its diversity and intermingling, than pt.2 is BLACK RAIN, even more heavy on the Crime and Blood and Guts. To make out hits is easy: “House Of Flying Daggers” prod. by J Dilla is classic Wu-Gambino material in a vein with “Triumph”, “Cold Outside” tops “Rainy Days”, “Black Mozart” and “New Wu” feature above the mark RZA shit but for this listener the best from the Abott this time is “The Fat Lady Sings” because of its illness. I don´t see no real misses around, other outstanders include “10 Bricks”, the chilling bonus “The Badland” and the uplifting endpoint “Kiss The Ring”. If you thought the Wu couldn´t produce tight woven big screen material any more, you´re wrong, every skit here is carefully laid out, we got another classic here, thank you, CHEF!
9 von 10
EVANGELISTA Prince Of Truth (& Hello, Voyager)
I did listen to 2008s HELLO, VOYAGER (I totally missed this release) for the first time a day or two after inhaling PRINCE OF TRUTH and was a little disappointed by the new LP at the initial listen, I expected more of a Rock Thing, a follow up to the mind bending EVANGELISTA from 2005 – but, silly rabbitt me, all of the expected and more is to be found on HELLO, VOYAGER – bringing the gothic, dark, lyrical Rock thing to an endpoint with the awesome, hair-raising title track that features all of Bozulichs Rock-intentions destilled 100 proof. So the new album had to go somewhere else, and that it does! The starting point “The Slayer” picks up immediately after “Hello, Voyager” still rocking and screaming with some of Bozulichs best lyrics ever: “am I here just to think – it matters what I do - I can never really be – yet I don´t mind if I do – take the pennies from my eyes – let me kiss the friends I knew” – prime, cathedral stuff, yeah – and from there the music segues into two great softspoken ballads picking up tempo again with “You Are A Jaguar” where Bozulich defines a new style for metal-singing, falling back for two more great ballads with fantastic musical ideas and crescending with “On The Captains Side” another prime example of Bozulich AND crews ability to build their noisy art to opera-kindalike grandeur. The musicians collaborating with Bozulich can´t be thanked enough for their restraint in this endeavour, this is so concentrated a performance I´ve seldom listened to in the field of free music, I bow my head before each one of them, and after listening to both albums for 10 times each I can´t say that one is better than the other or the first, equally great Album from 2005, this is prime-time experimental avantgarde, kudos.
10 von 10
