producers: gza, mathematics, inspectah deck, john the baptist, arabian knight, mathematics, rza

guests: killah priest & RES, ol' dirty bastard, masta killa, rza, hell raizah, royal fam (timbo king), dreddy kruger, njeri, joan davis, trigga, prodical sun, method man, la the darkman

First off: this album is too short. Only getting 12 new tracks is just not enough. And although the 4 skits, the intro and the outro are far ahead of about 90% of what you are likely to find on any other album nowadays (check "Skit #2"), we still want more GZA. We want to hear his words. Especially since we can finally enjoy Wu releases again. Okay, we always could, but what some call a shift in creativity, a progress in their music, I call constantly falling off more and more. Just listen to mediocre albums, like the Capadonna album, the Bobby Digital or the Killarmy albums. However, we will not get into that right now, but let’s just talk about this album.

Let’s check out the production first, that is handled by several of the next generation of Wu beatknitters. Like Mathematics, who blesses five tracks, one of them being "High Price, Small Reward". A high toned piano chimes over a thumping bass, and does not even have to switch, and it still doesn’t get boring. Okay, the track clocks in at 1’43", so not much time to get boring, but nevertheless a nice beat. The title track "Beneath The Surface" contains another standout production. Inspectah Deck found some time, while waiting until his own album drops (Loud get your business straight), to lace his fellow Wu-Banger with an atmospheric track, that plays with the strings in a dub fashion, and the singing of RES, complements, this classic Wu sure shot. Other stellar tracks are "Hip Hop Fury", produced by Arabian Knight. Once again a playful piano over a thumping bass, but that’s just nice like that and "Mic Trippin", once again produced by Mathematic.

Let downs have to be "1112" produced by the RZA, that just can’t live up to the rest on the album. Also "Crash Your Crew" dangles between annoyingly sounding like something "heavy metal-ish" and plain wack, because of Ol’ Dirty’s senseless babbling and screaming. That kind of thing is played out, at least since the first 30 minutes of ODB’s album. "Breaker, Breaker" just sounds too synthetic, too much like a cheap video game, to be able to appeal. So the beats on this album are defenitely of the hit or miss type. Some hit, some miss.

Not the rhymes though. Actually they hit so much, that it’s almost dangerous to you ears. On the freestyle like "Mic Trippin", GZA spits "first lesson came from a session, room one / from the longest awaited, but the strongest made it / complex, complicated, compressed elongated / homicidal sub-title, Wu claw banga off the ocean shore". And two of the most prolific writers in hip hop team up on "Beneath The Surface", where Killah Priest rhymes "had bitter stingers in they tail / walked through the chambers of death / take a whole lawn to hell / embracing her was like embracing the third rail". While on "Victim" GZA touches a piece of reality with his rhyme "a bloody war in the country, the youth hungry / on the corner, hyenas amongst me / yabbing bout the stories, they be hearing, always swearing / can't even spell the shit that he be wearing / caught up in the silk web of material / superficial stains ya brain tissue, that's the issue".

We wanted some GZA. And a lot of times, he shares tracks with other Wu-Affiliates, like Method Man, Hell Raizah, Masta Killa to name a few, so when the album closes, after only 46’18", we even got less of GZA. However, this is  how Wu releases are supposed to sound like.