Yahoo! Music Album Review

Released on 08/01/07
Label: Re Up Gang

The cover art to the long-awaited follow up to "Lord Willin'' says it all really. The Thornton brothers Pusha T and Malice are wearing gold crowns posed around an oven, against a wall papered in dead presidents and £50 notes (and just in case you've just woken up or are still feeling rough from NYE, it means they've got money to burn.) And if you didn't like the casual misogyny, glorification of crack dealing and unapologetic thuggery of the debut then stop reading now, because "Hell Hath No Fury" makes it sound like "Meat Is Murder" by The Smiths.

No, it might have genuinely taken a bit of hard, old fashioned drug dealing to support Clipse for the ten years between Pharrell Williams first discovering them in the early '90s and their breakthrough in 2002, but if the lyrics here are anything to go by they've still got plenty of gak-related inspiration left. But it's one half of The Neptunes who is the real star here (Chad Hugo appears to be on holiday at the moment) and his deft touch informs the entire disc. For the most part these are sparse and brutal beats with interesting and economical use of instrumentation.

"We Got It For Cheap" builds a simple tattoo beat on floor toms, mirrored by an organ line augmented by the occasional hand clap. There is the lurching, almost seasick Tom Waits accordion sample of "Momma I'm So Sorry", which is the argument between a coked-up devil on one shoulder claiming to be a "Black Socrates" and an angel with a comedown on the other, apologising for being so "obnoxious". Most stark and stripped down is the hypnotic "Mr Me Too", but if it's another pranging club banger like "Grindin'" you're after, do not fear. "Wamp Wamp (What It Do)" has a cheeky calypso steel drum loop and a beat that sounds like it's been constructed from samples from a table tennis match. But probably weirdest is the cash waving "Trill" which is constructed round defiantly old school acid house washes and electro blats.

But old habits die hard and this must be the only album to feature liner notes with one brother giving a shout out to the other while also telling him to get his sh*t together. The other one merely apologises to him for "the fiasco". Over the page we see amongst the drug dealer's detritus a bottle of champagne cooling in some ice in a microwave oven proof Pyrex jug. Read into that what you will. It seems they're still willing to peddle in teenage mythology about drug dealing instead of telling us the all-too interesting truth. On the strength of this, we'll still be waiting on tenterhooks for the next album though.

    by John Doran