In The Deck

Wu-Tang Clan – Iron Flag

 At this point, each release from the Wu-Tang Clan should instead have a giant question mark on the cover, rather than a yellow phoenix icon. Reason being is, that ever since the release of Wu-Tang Forever, the have been wildly inconsistent – but still would surprise us from time to time with an album like Ghost Dini’s Supreme Clientele, or it’s decent follow up Bulletproof Wallets. Is Iron Flag another classic, or another dud?

In retrospect, the Wu’s last album, The W can only be remembered as a cluttered and jumbled mess, hardly on par with any of their previous releases. The Iron Flag is much the same, but thankfully is a better album in the end. It is in fact representative of the Wu-Tang Clan’s current state of inconsistency - some tracks being excellent with “Protect Ya Neck” down-the line rhymes, such as the lead single “Uzi (Pinky Ring)” and the DJ Premier-esque “Rules”, others presenting the off-kilter rawness valued by true Wu fans, on tracks like “Soul Power” (with Flavor Flav filling in for O.D.B. as the group’s drunken master), and “Ya’ll Been Warned”, and still others that even take it back to the classic era, such as “Babies” and “Iron Flag”.

Each of these tracks are dope for their own reasons, and definitely much better than 90% of The W, but in this day and age of commercial rap millions, at times the watering the down of the Wu-Tang’s sound pollutes the album. Tracks like “One Of These Days” and “Back In The Game”, both tinged with R&B vocals and smoother than usual production, are prime examples of the Wu’s current state of confusion. Not to mention some tracks which could have been abandoned completely, such as “Dashing”, (borrowing a hook from “Jingle Bells”, believe it or not).

The main problem with the Wu-Tang Clan today is that they lack focus and direction - they’re albums don’t feel like albums any more, but instead haphazardly thrown together collections of songs. And being that there are so many people in the Clan, on this album more than any other, with such a diverse collection of sounds and emcees, many of the songs lack purpose. With everybody rhyming in his own little world, there’s hardly a song on here with any coherent subject matter, connecting one emcee to the next. Like Bulletproof Wallets, from song to song, Iron Flag is decent, but still doesn’t capture to magic of the Clan’s early years.

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