Album: Liquid Swords
Release Date: November 7, 1995
Producer: RZA
Review: Liquid Swords opens with a lengthy dialogue clip from the samurai classic Shogun Assassin, which is the first in a series of films in the Lone Wolf and Cub series. In it, a paranoid shogun in feudal Japan sends his henchmen to kill his best assassin, fearful that he will turn on the shogun one day. The henchmen kill his wife instead and he takes his infant son on the road with him. Dialogue from the movie appears regularly throughout the album and sets a weighty tone throughout its 55-minute runtime.
Liquid Swords is the first album since Enter the Wu-Tang to feature all nine original members of Wu-Tang Clan, but even more exciting is that this is the fifth straight album by the Wu family to be practically flawless. Granted, by this point in time any Wu fan would have a good idea of what to expect from RZA's production, but that doesn't detract from the sound. For example, I've already commented nearly every week about the horn-heavy funk- and soul-inspired beats RZA often concocts but that doesn't make the music for "Living in the World Today" or "I Gotcha Back" any less fantastic. It wasn't broke and RZA didn't fix it. I'm especially partial to the jazzy piano on "Duel of the Iron Mic" and the beat on "Labels." Another interesting note on Liquid Swords' musical side is that along with Only Built 4 Cuban Linx..., it's the second album in a row for which RZA didn't hire an engineer or assistant engineer to assist in the recording process. It's all him from front to back once again, and both these albums are often regarded as the best of the 65+ albums on the Map of Shaolin.
There are plenty of highlights throughout the record. GZA wisely incorporates some hooks with RZA on backing vocals, including "I Gotcha Back" and "Liquid Swords," which translate well to a live show - in fact, GZA has been quoted as saying the hook for "Liquid Swords" is a routine from club shows that he, RZA and Ol' Dirty Bastard performed in the mid-'80s. The subwoofer-busting bass fills "Shadowboxin'," which brings a facet of RZA's sound that would later repeat in "Fast Shadow" for the Ghost Dog soundtrack - listening to the two back to back, they sound almost as if one is a musical outtake of the other. "Swordsman" is an exceptionally dark track with wavering keyboards and rugged drums and one to watch out for; it also would have been comfortable on Tical.
GZA is often referred to as the strongest lyricist in the group, and that's easy to see with Liquid Swords. Consider the chess metaphor in "Gold" - "He got swung on, his lungs was torn / The kingpin just castled with his rook and lost a pawn." The song is a gangland story and GZA perfectly fits in a metaphor about one side's king (here, a drug kingpin) using a move called "castling" with his rook - in which the king switches places with the rook to avoid danger - before losing a pawn, which is obviously an unimportant piece. GZA is saying that a death that's occurred in the tale occurred because a drug kingpin ducked out of a dangerous situation, left his subordinates to suffer the fallout and let a low-level member of his group get killed. And GZA has always been a chess fanatic - he released a solo album in 2005 called Grandmasters in which every song uses chess metaphors in its verses. Deep lyrics like the castling metaphor in "Gold" are typical of GZA's style and earn him the nickname "The Genius."
I mentioned "Labels" earlier as a musical favorite, and it's also the first of three tracks to use a clever acronym in its lyrics: "The capitol of this rugged slang is Wu-Tang / Witty Unpredictable Talent And Natural Game." A similar line follows in "4th Chamber" by RZA, who spits "Protons Electrons Always Cause Explosions." Third, in "I Gotcha Back," GZA says "What's the meaning of Crime? / Is it Criminals Robbin' Innocent Motherfuckers Every time? The other accolade "Labels" deserves is its amazingly smooth inclusion of countless record labels in its rhymes, starting with Tommy Boy ("Tommy ain't my motherfuckin' Boy") and also including Def Jam, Epic, East West, Jive, Atco, Mercury, Death Row, Tuff City, Jive, Sleeping Bag, Uptown, 4th and Broadway, Columbia, Interscope, RCA, Atlantic, Arista, Motown, Geffen and CBS.
Which brings us to "4th Chamber," a fan favorite featuring a grimy beat and verses from Ghostface Killah, Killah Priest (who seems to be channeling Masta Killa here), RZA and GZA. RZA's lyrics feature some of the government-fearing paranoia familiar to Wu fans:
"A hit was sent from the President to raid your residence
Because you had secret evidence and documents
About how they raped the continents and lynched the prominent
Dominant Islamic Asiatic black Hebrew."
The guest spots throughout Liquid Swords are so strong (including a later appearance by Raekwon) that GZA could've found himself lost in the mix if he weren't so exceptional in his own right. He even manages to stand his own when up against the buttery-smooth Method Man verses in "Shadowboxin'." GZA's verse here ends with a shout-out to his cousin RZA and a confidence that the Wu murder the mic: "Set the lynching and form the execution date / As this two thousand beyond slang suffocate / Amplify samples through vacuum tubes compressions / Cause RZA to charge niggas 20 G's a session." If "Gold" gave us a peek into the future with GZA's chess-obsessed album Grandmasters, this analysis of a drum machine's innards foreshadow GZA's upcoming science concept record Dark Matter as much as his tech-titled release Pro Tools. However, it's much easier to see Genius's genius in its full scope, and his purely solo tracks are evidence of that. The aforementioned "Gold," "Labels" and "Swordsman" evidence GZA's standalone chops, as does his last proper song, "I Gotcha Back" - the last of which was released as a single a full year before Liquid Swords hit the store shelves. The album's final track, "Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth," is a solo track by Killah Priest - just as Raekwon gave Ghostface his own spotlight with "Wisdom Body" on Cuban Linx... and Ghost then gives Raekwon his own solo track "The Faster Blade" on Ghost's 1996 debut Ironman.
All in all, Liquid Swords is a brilliant, concise solo effort that may be the emotionally heaviest album the Wu had released by that point. Tical sounded pretty dark with its musical production, but few of its verses compare to the true story in "Hell's Wind Staff / Killah Hills 10304" about the young man smuggling a kilo of cocaine into the states by having it surgically implanted in his leg. If you're looking for a legendary Wu solo album but Raekwon's mafioso rap isn't your style, this is the album to own.
Legacy: Like the others before him, GZA set the bar for himself pretty damn high by releasing this album. It frequently ranks highly on "Best Hip-Hop Albums of All Time" lists, having earned increased respect over the years. The stakes are still high for Dark Matter despite a 20-year gap between it and Liquid Swords. Two albums after the original Liquid Swords he offered Legend of the Liquid Sword, which some criticized as an insincere effort, but next to the flawlessness of Liquid Swords, it would be nearly impossible to bottle lightning a second time. Having said that, I feel any stumbling critics may see in his albums Legend of the Liquid Sword or Beneath the Surface come close to being retroactively erased by the on-point Grandmasters and Pro Tools. GZA announced years ago that he's working on Liquid Swords 2, perhaps hoping to match the success that Raekwon had with Only Built 4 Cuban Linx...Pt. 2, and until it comes out, all we can do is hope.
Recommended Tracks: Once again (but maybe for the last time), pretty much every song on this album is fantastic. Check the mash-up video for "Shadowboxin' / 4th Chamber" first to see how GZA plays with others, then "Liquid Swords" to check how he stands on his own.
Next Week: Ghostface Killah: Ironman.
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