Album: The Meth Lab
Producers: Pascal Zumaque, 4th Disciple, Allah Mathematics, etc.
Release Date: August 21, 2015
Review: Method Man has been advertising his solo album Crystal Meth since at least Blackout! 2, so it's a bit surprising that nine years after his last solo album, 4:21 The Day After, we ended up getting this project instead - The Meth Lab, whose heavy focus on guests and co-stars lends it an air of a 'Meth and Co. Mixtape' than a new standalone solo record. But having said that...it's a pretty solid album and all the talent on it hold their own against the Ticallion Stallion, one of the slickest emcees on Earth. Heading up the cast (aside from Meth of course), Hanz On appears on 10 of the album's tracks and Streetlife appears on nine, with Carlton Fisk clocking three appearances.
The Meth Lab kicks off with its title track, which took some growing on me. It's a good opener, but not the weird punches in the face like "Tical" or "Perfect World" were, which started Tical and Tical 2000, respectively. Up next is the much more favorable "Straight Gutta," with help from Redman and a tight verse from Streetlife. It may be 20 years on since his first solo record, but Mr. Mef can still shut 'em down with lines like "I'll be gone 'til November, cry me a river / You could die, but I figure I'ma try and be the bigger man / I and my gorillas, gonna fry 'em up for dinner / Like them boys in Cypress Hill said, 'How I could just kill a man.'" It's good to hear him juggling the two rhyming sounds - river, figure, bigger, gorillas, dinner and "kill a" vs. using "man" at the end of every other line. And yeah, "man" is the same word twice over, but by making it "bigger man" and "kill a man," the implied bit is extended to the two words that "man" is paired with, so he pulls it off. Or at least I think so.
"Bang Zoom" dials back the fury a bit for a chiller track with a grooving hook by Easy Get Rite, while "50 Shots" has a Miami-sounding guitar and really laid-back sound. As I mentioned in the quick review, I love Meth's opening line here - "Y'all don't get the picture before we focus / Facts, look who back, crooked like scoliosis." It's got an almost DOOM-level humor to it and works a killer double meaning.
Long-time Wu disciple Allah Mathematics produces two back-to-back songs here, "The Pledge" and "2 Minutes of Your Time." The two balance each other out; "The Pledge" is performed by Hanz On and Streetlife without Method Man at all, then "2 Minutes of Your Time" is one of the only tracks rapped by Meth on his own. The beat on the former is grimier, while on the latter there's more of a '70s film influence. "Worldwide" follows, with a great gangsta beat by Pascal Zumaque (who also brought us "50 Shots" a few minutes ago). It may be Method Man's best verse so far, with his signature untouchable flow - "These rappers rap backwards, I don't rap with them rap dudes / 2pac backwards, pull that ratchet and cap 2." Later he has an amazing set of lyrics that juggle enough rhymes to shut the hardest critics up. Check the bold and underlined words for those sick rhymes planted throughout this stanza - "What would Shaq do? Go harder in the paint / Slap you like a barber / Or the sixth man, thinkin' he's a starter when he ain't / I'm a sick man, but you're smarter than you think / And it's a thin line between the driver and the robber in the bank." Crazy awesome.
"Soundcheck" is my least favorite track, through nobody's fault, really. For some reason the rock guitar doesn't work for me. It sounds more like that video game rock of yesteryear that wasn't half as hard as it intended, which is weird because it's the third Pascal Zumaque-produced track and I love his other two beats. He's a really good producer but this joint just falls flat for me. Fortunately, Zumaque's beat on "Water" washes the taste out of your mouth - no pun intended. This slower jam has a good descending piano line and a darker feel to it. Meth is relaxed and in control of his rhymes and, for once, I actually like the pitch-lowered vocal tone used on the hook. Chedda Bang kinda sings and kinda raps his verse, which is smooth but not overly quotable. It's a good recovery from "Soundcheck," as is "Lifestyles" just after it.
"Lifestyles" puts Zumaque at a four-out-of-five ratio for me up to this point. It's another great chill beat, brighter than "Water" with another sunset-driving-near-the-beach sound I've been noticing a lot in recent months on The Map. It's weird how well the rappers here (Cardi, Freaky Marciano and Easy Get Rite) hold their own without Method Man present at all. When I preordered my copy of The Meth Lab, this was one of the tracks that came with it before its release and I enjoyed it more than I thought I should since it lacks its main rapper. Freaky Marciano brings a good "lonely at the top" hook a la Eminem's Recovery between Cardi's and Easy Get Rite's verses.
But I have to admit, my favorite seven minutes on the album is the pairing of "The Purple Tape" (ft. Raekwon and Inspectah Deck) and "Intelligent Meth" (ft. Masta Killa, Streetlife and iNTeLL). "The Purple Tape" may be my favorite beat on the record, charging and engaging with low piano chords and a kick-kick-snare pattern on the drums, produced by J57. Occasionally, a wild ascending piano riff comes in like something off a video game soundtrack, but unlike "Soundcheck" it's a brilliantly curious "emulating Victorian England" sound reminiscent of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night or Rayark's music games Cytus or Deemo. Coupled with the short vocal sample, huge bass and slick verses by Meth, Rae and Deck, it's a real winner. Meth sticks with one rhyme sound for most of his 16 bars, which is impressive, but the flow is even better: "Lace your boots up, tracks get looped up / The chocolate deluxe gets scooped up, all my pigeons is cooped up / Wu's up, w's up / If y'all ain't with us chuck a deuce up, and let us do us." Raekwon hits the ground running and doesn't seem to take a breath his whole verse, with his trademark slang style - "Lab with the pole she slide down, I'm in the basement countin' faces / Drunk on the slouch, count the spaceships / Jewelry to my kneecaps, breathe stacks, ho's and sleestaks / HSBC see me gettin' G-packs, herringbones and stones in 'em." Deck makes a bold changes the rhyme scheme from his usual style. Where he usually bounces to the end of each line, here he frequently uses two rhymes per line, unrelated to the next line. And they go inside out, so it's not just two short lines back-to-back. Here's an example, with one rhyme set in bold and the other underlined. "The upset talking, I'm 'yes y'all'ing for checks, bossin' the set, you actin' like my ex calling." If that doesn't convince you, this may: "I dazzle like a magic trick, fabulous swordsmen, sorta like abortion I ain't havin' it." It's the type of brilliant, odd-flow shit that Masta Killa or Cappadonna would do, but Deck can pull it off really well also.
As I said, next up is "Intelligent Meth." It kicks off with iNTeLL, who's U-God's real-life son. iNTeLL can really rhyme, too, and with a style that's partly similar and partly different from his father. Where as U-God frequently uses his rhymes twice per line, or breaks his lines in half if you look at it that way, iNTeLL uses a similar method on a few lines but leaves less of a breather between the two halves of each line. He fills each line to bursting before the fourth beat, usually letting it hang alone instead of leaving a gap in the middle and the end like U-God. It reminds me a lot of Phi Life Cypher's work, especially their collaborations with Gorillaz. Anyway, he's followed by Method Man and Masta Killa, who sound as good together here as they did on A Better Tomorrow last December. Masta Killa's verse is smoky and mysterious, representing how he's refined his style over the last 10 years since No Said Date. He sounds sharper and darker here than his most recent outing, his new single "Return of the Masta Kill," with lines like "Seeing son in my hood, it ain't all sweet / And you haven't earned the respect of those who come, creep and take money / So you just some food that niggas eat / And they don't get no chain back / You might see 'em rocking that / Fuck you looking at? Problem needs solving / You see that big 357 thing revolving."
As I said in my preview of The Meth Lab, I'm not crazy about "What You Getting Into." The beat is phat and the verses flow slow and easy like molasses (in a good way), but the hook tries to sound aloof but comes across annoyed. Fortunately, the last three songs are pretty good overall. "Another Winter" has a killer Wu beat by 4th Disciple with piqued drums, orchestral stabs and wah-wah guitar. It helps Meth, Hanz On, Streetlife and Carlton Fisk along the way, and you gotta love a posse hook. I'm also a bit of a sucker for piano in hip-hop (so long as both are on point) so "Rain All Day" is all smiles for me. Its beat could find a good home on Tical 2000, which I think is pretty underrated, and Hanz On has some good lines like "Caught without your weapons it gets ugly in a second / Sidearms hover like we bought 'em from The Jetsons." Then "So Staten" I have to stick with my first impressions: Solid verses (lyrics and music both) but the hook changes it up so much it really throws me. It feels like it drains the energy from the rest of the song.
So The Meth Lab is a solid listen but it's not perfect. As it is, it sits around the middle of the Method Man pile for me. It's much better than Tical 0 (but what isn't) and Blackout! 2, about on par with 4:21 The Day After (although this keeps my interest a bit more easily) but falls short of Tical, Tical 2000 and the first Blackout!. Aside from having a voice that's really similar to Ghostface Killah, Hanz On is good company for Method Man, and Meth's longtime collaborator Streetlife is always a competent (if not legendary) emcee. Having three Wu generals in the middle of the album is a good refresher if you get down on a couple of the lesser tracks ("Soundcheck," "What You Getting Into") but I'd say it's worth the cash and there are a lot of really tight tracks. It wavers between "good" and "great" for most of its hour and is a welcome addition (and final regular step) on the Map of Shaolin.
Recommended Tracks: Straight Gutta, Worldwide, The Purple Tape, Another Winter.
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