Here's a review of the album from Rollingstone Australia 
:
"I want to go home and see my wife and kids". The looped hook that introduces "Mistaken Identity" is an accurate summation of Wu-Tang Clan in 2014. The days of "stickup kids, corrupt cops, and crack rocks" are long gone and, while it's a cliché to berate ageing rappers and their fading credibility, removing the group's grimey street-rap edge leaves us with so little.
This particular line also inadvertently mirrors the group's continuing disinterest in their own creative output. The competitive 16-bar duels that dominated their pre-millennium recordings have been replaced by a stagnant conveyor belt of diplomacy, each member now given their own reserved space, seemingly recording in isolation. It's a fragmentation that reflects the ongoing feuds between members (something RZA attempts to squash on the opener, pleading with Raekwon that "all those bad times are behind us"), with any sense of listener engagement destroyed by the fleeting level of conviction presented.
This copy-and-paste lyricism dictates that a large part of the album's cohesiveness once more falls on RZA's production. Taking a lighter tone and continuing his experiments with live instrumentation, his contribution is the record's saving grace, providing enough variety to distract from the lack of verbal continuity. The re-invention of Dusty Springfield's "Son of a Preacher Man" as "Preacher's Daughter", as well as the soulful undercoat of the title track, are the obvious standouts on an album that ultimately serves more as an attempted solution for inner-turmoil than an exhibition of what this once-exciting rap collective is capable of.
http://rollingstoneaus.com/reviews/post/wu-tang-clan-a-better-tomorrow/904
:"I want to go home and see my wife and kids". The looped hook that introduces "Mistaken Identity" is an accurate summation of Wu-Tang Clan in 2014. The days of "stickup kids, corrupt cops, and crack rocks" are long gone and, while it's a cliché to berate ageing rappers and their fading credibility, removing the group's grimey street-rap edge leaves us with so little.
This particular line also inadvertently mirrors the group's continuing disinterest in their own creative output. The competitive 16-bar duels that dominated their pre-millennium recordings have been replaced by a stagnant conveyor belt of diplomacy, each member now given their own reserved space, seemingly recording in isolation. It's a fragmentation that reflects the ongoing feuds between members (something RZA attempts to squash on the opener, pleading with Raekwon that "all those bad times are behind us"), with any sense of listener engagement destroyed by the fleeting level of conviction presented.
This copy-and-paste lyricism dictates that a large part of the album's cohesiveness once more falls on RZA's production. Taking a lighter tone and continuing his experiments with live instrumentation, his contribution is the record's saving grace, providing enough variety to distract from the lack of verbal continuity. The re-invention of Dusty Springfield's "Son of a Preacher Man" as "Preacher's Daughter", as well as the soulful undercoat of the title track, are the obvious standouts on an album that ultimately serves more as an attempted solution for inner-turmoil than an exhibition of what this once-exciting rap collective is capable of.
http://rollingstoneaus.com/reviews/post/wu-tang-clan-a-better-tomorrow/904
I just listened to that shyt, my fukkin ears fam, I'm near speechless, how in the fukk did no one tell RZA that was shyt to his face.
