Wu-Tang Clan - Ruckus In B Minor (2014)

New Wu-Tang!!!!!

Let's not get carried away, this isn't 36 Chambers or Wu-Tang Forever-level stuff - but it's a damn sight better than anything on 8 Diagrams and would hold its own with the best tracks on The W and Iron Flag.

It's absolutely brilliant to hear vocals from all 10 members of the Clan on the same track though, for the first time since 9 Milli Bros. on Ghost's 2006 album Fishscale and they all sound in inspired form.

Ghostface, Cappadonna and Method Man on the hook put in standout performances, while ODB's ad-libs throughout truly warm the cockles of my heart.

The best part of the song is without a doubt saved until near the end though.  It's been a while since the Genius has made me really sit up and take notice,  but as the beat slows down to a crawl and the GZA starts dropping trademark knowledge you know that something special is happening.  The beat switches up midway through his verse and the experienced veteran rides it smooth as a wave and really got me amped up for RZA, Rae and Masta Killa, Meth and Dirt McGirt to close the song out.  This track gives me new hope for the album.

Wu-Tang is Forever.

Method Man - Perfect World/Judgement Day (1998)

Starting off Halloween week with a double dose of Method Man, with the album opener and the apocalyptic title track off his second solo album, Tical 2000: Judgement Day.

The album was released in late 1998 and played heavily off the many theories going around that the world was going to end as we knew it as we joined the next millennium. The album intro has a new year's countdown that ends with an explosion to set the tone for what follows.

Perfect World is the first proper track on the album and Meth lays out the scene for us all to see over a creepy RZA beat. The picture he paints is horrible even though Meth's character sounds right at home. 

Perhaps the most disturbing thing about the track is that the more you examine the lyrics, the more you realise that he's not necessarily describing a far off land but that much of what he's talking about us going on in the streets today.

The intro to the title track which acts as a closer to the album is about a minute long and has the Ticallion Stallion growling some warnings of how civilisation collapsed with some disturbing groans in the background before he descends into horrible screams of "I like the death, I like the misery, I LIKE THIS WOOOOOORRRRLLLD!"
As the song kicks in proper with a futuristic instrumental co produced by Method Man & 4th Disciple, Meth lays out just how fragile society is and how easily it could fall into a nightmare scenario following a catastrophic event.

The video is available below and also well worth checking out for the apocalyptic imagery and Meth looking creepy as fuck!

RZA - Tragedy (1997)

Despite being the leader of the Wu-Tang Clan and having handled all the production duties on the unmatched sequence of classic albums between '93 and '97, The RZA hadn't taken centre stage as a solo artist until this video.   He'd always shone on group songs as well as features (4th Chamber a particular standout) with one of the most unique voices in hip hop so he had a lot to live up to.

Luckily with Tragedy he totally delivered with some of the best verses of his career over a stunning oriental beat and a haunting rendition of a Eurythmics classic for the hook.  The opening lines of the first verse are a great example of that iconic Wu-Tang style that made them such a force in Hip Hop:

Yo, yo, assassination, vaccination, poor education
Infatuation with Satan with global nataion taxation
Fiberoptic microscopic biological germ
Mad Cow burger on the market, Captain of your starship

The song really set down a marker for 1997 and whet the appetite of the masses for the Clan's second album Wu-Tang Forever that would be released a few months later.

The video was something special in itself and if you watch it back now, you can see how much it influenced The Man With The Iron Fists - the movie that he directed 15 years later.