The Wu Ain't Through: 'Chamber Music' Review




It's hard not to root for a new Wu-Tang album to be great. Then again, it's also difficult to not compare it to their best work from previous years. Whether that's unfair or not, you be the judge. All I know for sure is that Chamber Music has the potential to be great, and at times, it definitely is, but it is also frustratingly short, and much of its most interesting instrumentation is tossed off on interludes.

There are only eight actual songs on this 17-track album. The rest are skits with RZA waxing rhapsodic about various facets of the Wu philosophy.

That said, almost all of the songs are killer, but their most interesting feature is their simplicity. As opposed to the RZA productions in the mid-'90s that had six or seven samples mashed up in them, these tracks are mostly very straightforward. "Kill Too Hard" is an organ hit and a string fill, "I Wish You Were Here" is a melancholy soul loop and "Ill Figures" is little more than than a neck-cracking beat and a mid-range bassline.

Guest shots from Masta Ace, Sean Price, Cormega, Sadat X, Havoc and others keep it from being the strict Wu-Tang affair that past clan records have been, but everything works.

Raekwon, You Dirty Tease... (the new Wu-Tang mixtape)

All in together now: CUBAN LINX II! CUBAN LINX II!!

Generally speaking, I wasn't one for mixtapes. But the Clipse's We Got It 4 Cheap series changed my mind - particularly since about 10 of its best tracks plus "Intro," "Mr. Me Too" and "Keyz Open Doorz" would have been a stone-cold classic and twice as good as Hell Hath No Fury.

Anyway, all that aside, this new Wu mixtape is nice. REAL nice. Killah Priest's most accessible song, well, probably ever is on here, the string-and-soul "One Day," Cilvaringz flows over a track that has that baroque-soul sound that you used to love about the Wu, and MF Doom pairs up with Ghostface for a fantastic remix of "Chinatown Wars," off the new Grand Theft Auto soundtrack. Redman's on two tracks as well, including one with Oh No.

But it's mostly notable for a masterful return by Raekwon, kicking Brooklyn Super Ninjas off joined by Busta Rhymes and a dusty, distorted guitar loop on "Stick Up Music," not to mention rocking hot verses over the "Brooklyn Go Hard" beat and upping the tempo on "Heat Rocks."

That, paired with his equally-fiyaaah verse on Doom's new Born Into This joint, has me rabidly anticipating a new Raekwon album. And while it can never be Cuban Linx II, hopefully everyone's favorite Chef can get Doom, RZA and Mathematics to lace him with some hot shit.