Hell Hath No Fury [PA]

Performer: Clipse
Engineer: Andrew Coleman
Producer: The Neptunes; The Neptunes
Distributor: BMG (distributor)

Notes: Personnel: Pharrell Williams (background vocals). Audio Mixer: Andrew Coleman. Recording information: Hovercraft Studio, Virginia Beach, VA; South Beach Studio, Miami, FL. Photographer: Jonathan Mannion. It took Clipse over four years to get their second proper album on the shelves. As they were eager to discuss, the lag wasn't their fault. Well documented in print and on the Web, the oil spills and trap doors placed in front of the Thornton brothers were numerous. However, they weren't completely handcuffed. They released a pair of popular mixtapes that only intensified the anticipation for the official follow-up to Lord Willin'. (A talk with Bill Withers might give them an idea of how the music industry can truly paralyze an artist.) If any of the trip-ups played a role in the end result, they could be considered blessings in disguise. Hell Hath No Fury is a lean, furious, cold-blooded album that is vividly to-the-point. As with Lord Willin', all the production work is credited to the Neptunes, though Chad Hugo's name appears nowhere in the credits. A couple exceptions aside, these are some of the sparsest, most off-kilter Neptunes beats. They prod, hiss, dart, and thump -- ideal backdrops to Pusha T's and Malice's blunt-force, if occasionally knotty, rhymes. "Ride Around Shining" is baroque boom-bap, nothing more than a neck-snapping beat, Richard Pryor-sounding grunts, and cascading harp filigrees. "Trill" grinds and slides under a swarm of hungry cyborg mosquitoes. "Mr. Me Too" is nearly as minimal, a slinking bump. Lyrically, coke dealing dominates the subject matter more on this set than on the debut. Clipse survey their operation and reap its rewards, from easy-to-understand quips like "Pyrex stirrers turned into Cavalli furs" to the relatively mind-bending "If you're looking for a couple roosters in the duffle, keep the 'hood screaming 'Cock-a-doodle-doo,' motherf*ckers." Apart from specific elements of the "Mind Playing Tricks on Me"-quoting "Nightmares," as well as a couple other brief instances, the rhymes are guardedly self-congratulatory, like the MCs are wiping the gains in the haters' faces, albeit with the nagging sense that it could all blow up in an instant. The whole thing, including the club-oriented tracks, is magnetically grim. ~ Andy Kellman

Rolling Stone (p.120) - 4 stars out of 5 -- "The similarities of the duo's voices gives the music a subtle push and pull -- the brothers pick up on the other one's verses like they were harmonizing." Rolling Stone (p.103) - Ranked #7 in Rolling Stone's "The Top 50 Albums Of 2006" -- "[S]imply head-and-shoulders above almost anything on radio." Spin (p.105) - 4 stars out of 5 - "[T]his album is a how-to manual on the craft of MC'ing....Clipse transforms cliches into poetry." Spin - Ranked #09 in Spin's "The 40 Best Albums of 2006" -- "[T]he layered references and complicated schemes of their immaculately constructed lyrics make dirty work sound like poetry." Entertainment Weekly (p.82) - "[I]t's leavened by the rappers' knack for uproarious punchlines, and by the festive synthesizer squelches and dance beats supplied by the Neptunes." -- Grade: A Entertainment Weekly (p.130) - Ranked #5 in Entertainment Weekly's "Top 10 Records Of 2006" -- "Pusha and Malice's overflowing wit, humor and humanity make it surprisingly universal." Q (p.111) - 4 stars out of 5 -- "Pusha T and Malice are deft wordsmiths who deliver lean, whip-smart couplets..." Uncut (p.73) - 4 stars out of 5 -- "[T]hey deliver hungry, literate rhymes against a stripped-down backdrop." The Wire (p.53) - "The attitude grounds their stat-heavy boasting, helps them articulate a morality in the violent, seemingly amoral world of the drug trade..." XXL (Magazine) (p.148) - "[A] new, confidently mature sophomore effort....FURY is street hip-hop built to last." Mojo (Publisher) (p.105) - 3 stars out of 5 -- "It is ruthlessly edited and the stark beats are the best Hugo and Williams have built in years."

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