Two years after Tony Starks got to assassinate his way through the Mafia-Giallo-Exploitation-Movie »Twelve Reasons To Die« the story is being continued. True to the motto »Never change a winning team«, Ghostface Killah is yet again slipping into the role of Hitman For Hire, an assassin who was betrayed and murdered by his employers (the 12 DeLucas), who returns in order take revenge, after his ashes were pressed into 12 LPs. The RZA is once again the narrator, keeping the individual pieces together in one coherent frame, while Adrian Younge is taking care of the sound again, reminding us of the early Wu Tang Clan’s dry aesthetics as well as pretty much every Giallo ever made. The patina on his retro-soul comes along as deceptively realistic, so that it’s sometimes hard to believe that he actually plays his instruments himself instead just feeding his MPC. And still, the arrangements are rather restrained, considering that lots of room was to be left for stabbing-raps. Both, the reserved instrumentalization and the supporting roles are fundamental for the greater dramatic composition: The latter mentioned often turn into dying-roles and new characters appear in order to serve the storyline of »Twelve Reasons To Die II«: Scarub of the Living Legends, Chino XL and Lyrics Born to support the dagger-flashing storytelling – and, above all, there’s Ghostface’s Wu-companion Raekwon playing the role of Lester Kane, an influential antagonist of the DeLucas. The chemistry between the two, which already made »Only Built 4 Cuban Linx« become a classic, is still as fresh as ever. And otherwise? Otherwise, it’s all good. Let’s wait and see when the record will be made into a movie.
Carmike
Comin’ At Yo Ass
Now-Again