Word is, this album got pushed back. In the US that is, because it's out here in Europe (or Switzerland at least), and Sony hooked us up with a copy to review. Now, the official reason why this was pushed back, was given as it being heavy bootlegged. Possible. But upon listening to this, another reason could easily be, that this album is not that good, and the responsible people realized it. After being told, or after having cleared their ears. Hence they might have sent Royce Da 5'9" back to the lab, to come up with something that is more according to his skills.

Cause the guy can spit. After all he can hang with Eminem, he wrote lyrics for Dr.Dre, he was able to surround underground as much as mainstream fans around him, and even the harshest critics often enough had good words for him. That not only because he was spitting over a DJ Premier beat on his first 'hit' "Boom". Needless to say, this song is on here, but it stands out like a sore thumb, as there's only one second song on here, that features the same flavor on the beat tip, that Premo brings (with the second one "My Friend" also being produced by Premo). What says much about the extreme coincidental collection this album is, that fails to give it one particular feel. Now most of the other tracks are done in that synthetic type style, that seems to be the thing to do if you don't want to use samples, as well as a couple of shameless pop tunes.

So looking for the good beats on here, is a search that's over rather quickly. There's "Let's Go", that is quick, very choppy and only sounding good due to Royce going for the tongue twister style of rhyming (and Twista, not surprisingly is featured on here too). "D-Elite Part 1" is okay, but not much more. "Boom" is cool, but not even one of the best DJ Premier offerings, "Who Am I" and especially "Life" are very pop, but even that makes 'em sound better than most of the rest. And finally "My Friend" is a Premo bonus track, that is something strangely funny, but actually pretty cool, with completely mismatched chorus scratching though. Now, mentioning the bad is something that takes longer: there's for example Ryan West trying to sound like Dre on "We Live (Danger)", the Neptunes adding another 'version' to their one style on "Get'Cha Paper", "You Can't Touch Me" is the blatant pop style of the Trackmasters meeting the choppyness of the Neptunes and "She's The One" is just bad.

So that's the beat side, but when we look at the lyrics, we do have less to criticize. And at the same time we need to tragically conclude, that if the beats would have been similarly good, then this album could have been pleasing. Cause Royce says things like: "sit back, smoke, the joke is over, you woke / this is pure provoked 'murder', it's over 'she wrote' / I don't know how niggas manage to sleep / wake up! the clock radio done panicked the streets / say something. I been waiting now hand me these beats" and "I listen to y'all niggas records on Fool's Day" (both on "It's Tuesday (Intro)"), he boasts "one of a hundred niggaz'll hate my shit / eighty-nine'll bite, the other ten'll think of coming alike / cause my shit when it come to the mic, 99 outta 100'll like" ("Let's Go"). Or Royce comes dope when he sits down with his child to give him his insight into life, on "Life", that while using a Bee Gees sample, but the words he says are not less true: "let your heart tell your temper, 'put that gun back down!' / dry your tears up and turn that frown upside-down / it'd be plenty to cry for, think life, not death / you got much more to live for than to die for" and "but things ain't gonna always go right / look at it like, 'yo this ain't your day, but this your life'". Royce is further coming ill, when he talks about his "a man is defined by his -boing!- catch my drift" on the cut "My Friend", where he spits lines like "I guess I'm a bit abusive / I choke him up and beat him when he's thinking for himself / something I really don' love doing, cause I feel guilty and try to make it up to him". But even this niceness doesn't stop Royce from doing weak lyrics like "Get'cha Paper" or "She's The One".

So once more the conclusion needs to be that this could, if not to say, should have been better. Royce is too talented to go for the easy mainstream topics, the violent threatening nonsense and the quick buck lyrics. And he needs to develop a better ear for beats. Only then he'll continue to please all the cats, from all backgrounds. And with this album being pushed back (word is the new release date is in August), you can only hope that the people responsible will go over the books and correct some of the errors that are on here.