Wu-Tang: 'Legendary Weapons' review

It shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone that this new Wu-Tang (not to be confused with “Wu-Tang Clan…”) release isn’t outstanding, but I think that even the lesser Wu releases are worth examining since the name has appeared on such great albums in the past.

As with 2009’s Wu-Tang Chamber Music compilation, Noah Rubin handles most of the production here, with contributions from several others including M.O.P.’s Lil’ Fame.

The elements that make up the classic Wu-Tang sound are all present, but the drums are too weak to make you nod your head, the bass just kind of lies there, and the movie samples bear no relevance to anything.

All of the above descriptions of beat elements can also be applied to most of the verses on Legendary Weapons, which come courtesy of all of the WTC members except for GZA and Masta Killa, plus a host of other MCs.

While Raekwon’s verse on opener “Start the Show” and Inspectah Deck’s rhymes on “Never Feel This Pain” — the latter also appears on Deck’s 2010 solo album, Manifesto — are solid, Method Man’s flow on “Diesel Fluid” is, well, fluid, and not-quite official (?) Clan member Cappadonna's delivery on “225 Rounds” implies that he really wants people to hear what he’s spitting, pretty much all other contributions are either competent or subpar.

On “Start the Show,” RZA’s lyrics might make me think that he was freestyling, except that I’ve heard some of his freestyles and what he sometimes lacks in strong lyrics he usually makes up for in fun delivery (not so here). On the other hand, he flows so impressively steadily on the closing track, “Only the Rugged Survive,” that it's enjoyable to listen to but it’s kind of hard to follow the lyrics.

Ghostface Killah raps on four tracks, making him the most represented WTC member on the album, which is weird because he doesn’t sound all that into it. He brings tired, forgettable rhymes, which makes me think that he’s probably saving his best stuff for something else.

Taking the mic twice is Ghostface's associate, Trife, who raps confidently, is in great voice, and really doesn’t say anything interesting. He and most of the featured MCs simply deliver adequately, providing nothing that will make listeners want to hit rewind, let alone look into the MCs’ catalogues.

Most of the time, samples or something else that leaves no impression appear in between verses — exceptions are the horns in “225 Rounds” and Tre Williams's singing on “Never Feel This Pain” — and this makes it easy to imagine that no two people involved in any song actually communicated during the songwriting or production process.

This leads me to another big point, which is that Legendary Weapons completely lacks theme. Almost no two verses have anything to do with each other, no two MCs play off of each other, the rhymes and the beats seem to just apathetically co-exist, and almost any of the rhymes and beats could have been written for another project (or no project in particular).

The best Wu-Tang releases display skill and also vision. My impression is that the bar for everything was set at just “good enough” here.

It has its moments, but at the end of the day, Legendary Weapons is not strengthening the Wu-Tang brand. It received an appropriately low profile release, but maybe Wu-Tang Corps. should introduce a free download series for releases that are worth a listen but that don’t sound like anyone put all that much effort into them.