Album: Legendary Weapons
Producers: Fizzy Womack, Noah Rubin, Andrew Kelley, etc.
Release Date: July 26, 2011
Review: Wu-Tang and The Revelations teamed up in 2009 for a collaboration/comp called Wu-Tang: Chamber Music, which featured plenty of hip-hop legends and indie artists including Kool G Rap, AZ and others (read my review here). All in all, Chamber Music produced a classic Wu sound with live instruments, solid verses from most of Wu-Tang and some exciting guest spots, although with half the tracks being short vocal clips and the entire musical portion of the album clocking in at 25 or so minutes, it's hard to call it a full album.
The 2011 follow-up is Legendary Weapons. The album kicks off with "Start the Show," featuring Raekwon and RZA. The music is more rock than usual, which for my money works but could throw off some listeners. On the other hand, Rae and RZA both deliver tight verses, delving more into politics than usual. For example, Rae spits "Then stop, check my brothers and sisters in Africa / We know that's theirs, yes, we been actin' up / Bush fucked the world up, and left our soldiers / Out in Iraq, bless them with roses" while RZA rhymes "The beast must pay a price for his wickedness / Politics is the trickiest / Business on the planet, the bandits are the slipperiest."
Going back to music, I feel like overall Legendary Weapons is darker than Chamber Music, which felt brighter and more retro. Here, aside from the opening track, The Revelations provide murkier backdrops for Wu-family rapping than in the past. The first examples of this on the record are "Laced Cheeba" and "Diesel Fluid." "Laced Cheeba" has thick trip-hop drums and a two-note bassline with the occasional quick vocal sample, giving it a Liquid Swords feel behind some classic Ghostface Killah couplets: "Like Mr. Dash I blast, I'm a Menace like Dennis / Young Ghost in the bathroom, a six-month sentence." With "Diesel Fluid," on the other hand, the muddy drums return but this song uses a staccato two-tone keyboard to give it an almost-Dre sound on the verse. However, longer open-note keys shimmer and give the song a sad and ominous feel. Some of the best beats on the record. Method Man and Cappadonna feature on this track, although their verses aren't as memorable as they've been before and since.
"The Black Diamonds" uses the partnership of bass and piano to sound melancholic but intriguing over more bassy drums while Ghostface, Roc Marciano and Killa Sin rap. Roc Marciano (who you may remember from Think Differently Music) delivers an especially solid verse, even though he repeats some words, by sticking with one rhyme for the first half:
"Loose cannon, 40-deuce flicks to Paris
Way back at the Palace
Like Mike Harris, Callous
Fly nicest, metallic, bang mallets
Fly your whole carriage to Paris
The black Pat Garrett, carats on Donna Karans
Guys die tryin' to drive the McLaren
Islamic burn chronic out on the terrace."
Some more moody keys come in on the title track, sounding more like flutes and holding those open notes to evoke wariness and mystery. Sure, the drums are pretty similar to how they've been the last few tracks, but I find it to be a case of "If it ain't broke don't fix it." Ghostface partners with AZ and M.O.P. here, which is a good preview for Ghost, AZ and The Revelations collaborating for 2014's 36 Seasons. It also speaks to The Revelations' range, because "Legendary Weapons" sounds nothing like 36 Seasons whatsoever.
Things brighten up a bit for the soul-inspired "Never Feel This Pain" with Inspectah Deck, U-God and Tre Williams, although INS's and U-God's verses are like Method Man's earlier: good, but not so great as they are elsewhere. And it's interesting to note that this is just two years before Deck slayed it on Czarface and U-God delivered maybe his best solo album yet on The Keynote Speaker, so if anything these verses are a quick hiccup between greatness. Killa Sin returns on "Drunk Tongue" and brings much more skill than "The Black Diamonds" with Deck-inspired lines like "All you do is mention I, general exemplify / Sin City been gritty 10-city enterprise / About to make it 25, utilize my witty mind / To improvise my goal to reach the all-time city high." I never had a problem with Killa Sin, but this verse really put him on my radar.
With the weightiest line-up so far, "225 Rounds" features U-God, Cappadonna, Bronze Nazareth and RZA. U-God finds the energy he'd lost on "Never Feel This Pain" thanks to The Revelations' big band horns; Cappadonna tightens up his usual loose flow for an easier-to-follow verse than he usually provides as well. RZA brings some fun lines ("No man can sever this, I complete jobs effortless / Use tiger, crane, snake style and the leopard fist") but his best verse was on "Start the Show." Bronze Nazareth also shines with some cool lyrics, channeling his inner Masta Killa near the end. RZA closes out the album with "Only the Rugged Survive," which may have his most internal-rhyme-happy lyrics but have more of a braggadocious Bobby Digital feel than his RZA persona, so I still vote for "Start the Show" even though his lyrics here are more intricate ("Sippin' bitches, Cabernet grape, steaming halibut steak / Gold plate is stainless, four forks scrape the single plate").
Legacy: Although not every song stands out as an instant winner, I'm really surprised that Legendary Weapons only ended up with a 61 out of 100 on Metacritic. The biggest let-downs are some placeholder verses from some of the Wu-Tang generals (and where are GZA and Masta Killa?), but if we let a couple lukewarm verses spoil a whole record, we'd hardly listen to any rap at all. As it is, the music is tight, there's closer to a full album here (with 10 music tracks to Chamber Music's eight and the interludes spaced fewer and farther between) and there were some really pleasant surprises along the way, especially from Killa Sin and Roc Marciano. And I have to reiterate that some of the beats on Legendary Weapons are so damn intriguing they get stuck in my head for days. I'll admit that by this point, it had been four years since 8 Diagrams and some felt that that record was a misstep, so I imagine some people were ready for a full-on Wu-Tang Clan album with RZA producing, but that hole wasn't filled until 2014's A Better Tomorrow (and we'll get to that and where it worked and where it didn't in a couple more months). In the meantime, these standalone collaborations/compilations with The Revelations are pretty good appetizers for the meal. Cop this album if you haven't; it's a good "middle ground" album with plenty of representation from Wu-Tang and their disciples.
Recommended Tracks: Gotta step outside the usual "overall best songs" mode today. Some of my favorite beats have some of my least favorite lyrics and vice-versa, so here's two categories. Best Beats: Diesel Fluid, Legendary Weapons. Best Lyrics: Start the Show, 225 Rounds, Drunk Tongue.
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